Cadfael: The Virgin in the Ice (Tour - Darlington)

Cadfael tells the story of the medieval detective monk, looking for two missing children, Yves and Ermina Hugonin and their Nun tutor Sister Hilaria. Whilst also looking after Brother Elyas who was found robbed, beaten and left for dead. All in the back drop of Shropshire in 1139 with gangs robbing, pillaging and killing innocent people and burning properties to the ground.

This show offered such great potential that it failed to live up to, however with this performance being at the very start of the tour there is still time for the production to gel together and the actors settle more comfortably into their roles. Whilst some cast members feel the need to constantly overact and others just nonchalantly mooch into their role, Gareth Thomas portrays Brother Cadfael perfectly, his wonderful honeyed tones help with the narration of this very heavy going show. But Cadfael nicely solves all the mysteries with a very clichéd ending that Ellis Peters hammers home with the touch of a mallet trying to break an egg.

The scenery caused unintentional hilarity having a mind of its own and causing no end of problems for the habit bedecked movers. And some of the props over acted as much as the cast. We were also treated to some background film to help with the flow of the story interlaced with the live acting.

The music throughout is glorious, with beautiful tunes and Gregorian chanting and it’s worth a trip to the show purely for this.

- by Lindsay Sykes