THE voiceover sounds familiar, introducing the tale of Snow White and the seven banished courtiers. Isn’t that the warm BBC voice of the Cruft’s dog show and Blue Peter in the Seventies?

Yes, indeed it is Peter Purves, television presenter, canine enthusiast and, maybe less well known, director of 30 pantomimes for producer-writer Paul Elliott and his Qdos Pantomimes Company.

Purves last directed a Hull New Theatre pantomime in 1991, when Cannon and Ball led Dick Whittington to record-breaking success at the box office. Seventeen years later, he is – as the programme says – “delighted to be working with” the Grumbleweeds and Vicki Michelle, alias the French dish Yvette from ’Allo, ’Allo!.

Once a five-piece band, The Grumbleweeds are now slimmed to a duo of the clown-haired Graham Walker and the well-groomed Robin Colvill, who move with equal mediocrity between music, comedy and impressions.

Cast here as the word-muddling gang Muddles and the neat and tidy Lord Chamberlain, they throw in tired, perfunctory impersonations of Little Britain’s Andy and Lou and Ozzy Osbourne and Ali G, a flash of Walker’s belly and a blur of Colvill, flashing all but his tackle as he scoots across stage. Lame and limp, such “comedy” doesn’t make much of an impression.

By comparison, Vicki Michelle’s evil Queen Lucretia has just the right combination of thigh-revealing vamping, tongue-in-cheek villainy and a teasing rapport with the audience.

For the younger crowd, a couple of newer television faces take the pleasant, thoroughly nice principal roles. Polly Parsons, from CITV’s Fun Song Factory, is a doe-eyed Snow White with a strong singing voice, and James Mackenzie, alias Raven from CBBC, has one of those trusting Scottish accents so beloved of telephone answering services in his romantic role as Prince Jamie of Lockforest.


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