Snow! The Musical

With a title like Snow! The Musical, it is difficult to tell whether the compilation of Christmas hits will be full of heart-warming sentimental slush that would be a great way to kick off Christmas for young children, or whether, like Acorn Antiques! The Musical, the exclamation mark signifies a show satirising itself.

The problem with Snow! is that it tries to achieve both, combining terribly earnest Christmassey sentiment about the importance of family and panto-style double-entendre, mixed with very dark humour about an evil Santa who plans to make Christmas last all year by murdering every other festival on the calendar. The two styles definitely don’t gel, making for a lot of awkward moments when the audience is unsure whether to laugh or cry.

It’s Christmas Eve and Jilly only wants to be with her boyfriend, Jack (Daniel Reeves). Sadly her father won’t let her see him, and the lovelorn couple need cheering up. Handily, along comes a cheeky little elf (Bennett Andrews) who has escaped the megalomaniac Father Christmas and has just 24 hours to convince everyone of the magic of Christmas or the world will forever be enslaved by his former boss and forced to celebrate Christmas every single day of the year.

There are enjoyable performances from the ensemble company, which includes Hannah Spearritt of pop group S Club 7 fame as Jilly and Bad Girls’s Victoria Bush (who is fabulous as Jilly’s sarcastic, compulsively-eating step-sister, Lizzie, and has some laugh-out-loud moments). The cast do a good job of patching together the disjointed plot, and the familiar festive pop songs (including “Santa Baby”, “Jingle Bell Rock” and “Baby, it’s Cold Outside”) go well alongside some original music by Andy Caine, Richard Marsh and Guy Pratt.

But the musical doesn’t seem to be able to choose which direction to go in, and while the dark humour, swearing and rude jokes make it unsuitable for young children, it is not sophisticated enough to engage an adult audience – certainly not for the two acts it stretches on for.

If it was tightened up to include only the best of the humour and songs and made into a one-act comedy it would really have great potential. But as it is, the musical is a Snow go for me.

– Caroline Ansdell