Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield – until 5th January 2025
Reviewed by Alison Beaumont
5*****
Get yourself ready for an evening of fun and laughter for this year’s panto, Snow White.
You are greeted with a warm welcome and Christmas warm up by the enthusiastic and talented musical director James Harrison. You will not find anyone with as much passion for panto’s as this man. Make sure you don’t leave it to the last minute to take your seats as the musical warm up really gets you into the panto mood.
With a brilliant cast line up this was sure to be a good show.
Sheffield’s very own panto legend Damian Williams plays Nurse Nellie, and as in previous years does an amazing performance, wearing many different funny and bright costumes, my favourite one being the “Oldie Bag for Life”. How he manages to do so many quick changes is beyond me. Alongside Damian giving an equally funny performance is George Akid playing Muddles. The two together make a great double act.
As with all panto’s the cast feed from audience participation which adds to the ad-libbing fun.
Ex Coronation Street star Catherine Tydesley plays the Wicked Queen with grace and embraces the role with great class.
Aoife Kenny plays Snow White and does an outstanding job. Her vocals are beyond amazing and included in the show is the reference to her being in the West End Frozen musical. Matthew Croke plays alongside Aoife as Prince Charming and the two together show a great connection. Vocals by Matthew were equally as impressive.
If you are a fan of Gladiators you will love seeing this Panto as the one and only Viper (Quang Luong) stars as the Henchman.
Marc Pickering returns to Sheffield panto as Herma after playing a role 2 years ago in Jack and the Beanstalk and as in his previous performance adds fun and humour.
The seven dwarfs were played by Dean Whatton, George Coppen, Liam Roche, Simon Charnier, Paddy Holden, Binde Singh Johal and Hassan Taj, all of whom have lots of credits to their profiles. My favourite dwarf was Loopy who was so funny. I really liked the use of the song six (from the musical) changing it to seven, very clever.
The best part for me was the Elton scene, I won’t say anything else as I don’t want to spoil it for you.
All in all this is a great panto which involves the audience all the way through, it is by far one of the best Panto’s I have seen and I can not wait for next year for Aladdin.