REVIEW: The Snow Queen, Nuffield, Southampton, until January 4.

Rob Castell’s outrageously-camp, endlessly-enthusiastic, OTT Californian Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer is worth the admission alone – a piece of madness which will surely rank as the area’s best comic creation this Christmas.
By The Newsroom
Published 5th Dec 2014, 07:27 BST

Things are going along nicely enough until Rudolph takes the stage in a terrific piece of characterisation which shakes the mums and dads to life alongside their gently-smiling kiddies.

The show most definitely isn’t a panto, and maybe it’s just a little slow to spring to life. Certainly the opening couple of minutes are a confusing mess which need to be dropped straightaway.

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Slowly but surely, however, it’s a show which exerts a charm all its own – and then Rudolph erupts on stage and hilariously takes the whole thing by the scruff of its neck, injecting an energy you maybe only half realised was just a little lacking.

Castell also offers the night’s other highlight, a plummy Hugh-Grantesque prince who’s just a little disenchanted with a Snow White he’s started to realise he preferred when she was out for the count.

Rudolph and the Prince, along with a raven – very nicely played by Jack Shalloo – and a punk Red Riding Hood (Nicola Munns) are the characters, slightly Wizard of Oz-like,

Gerda (Jessie Hart) picks up along the way as she journeys to rescue Kai (Jos Slovick) from the clutches of the Snow Queen.

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Slovick really isn’t given an awful lot to work with in the character of Kai who spends an awfully-long time suspended above the stage, but Hart is spot on as Gerda, mixing vulnerability and spirit quite beautifully as she learns a few life lessons.

For anyone suffering panto indigestion or anyone in search of something rather different this Christmas, The Snow Queen might just be the ticket – a slow-starter but genuinely enchanting (and hilarious!) by the end.

Phil Hewitt

Related topics:SouthamptonPrince