SUNDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2025

The People's Panto: Snow White   Production photo courtesy of Brassneck Theatre Company

The Brothers Grimm feel anything but grim in the more than capable hands of writer Neil Keery, director Fionnuala Kennedy and Brassneck Theatre Company as Belfast's St Comgall's – a venue which always seems so much larger when filled with light and life – gives Snow White the now annual "People's Panto" treatment to rapturous effect. Another concise and excellently paced thrill ride with more than enough pop cultural references, disco dancing, colourful costumes, cheeriness and, er, super soakers to keep the audience happy, active or both, the production fulfils expectations in spectacle and performance while exceeding them in nuance. It's that sort of show – enjoyable and educational, in the most expected and unexpected of ways. 

This year, conceptuality appears to be going haywire on a stage which once again plays host to Keery’s Panto Dame, Fairy-Up Liquid, and an assortment of heroes, villains and in-betweens. With the help of her colleague Hunty the huntsman, played by David Murphy, Debra Hill's title character battles against the unwelcome attention of Maria Connolly's Eve L Queen - how's that for a name? - and the crowned one's desperation for the most and happiest TikTok followers in the land. All while Murphy and Vicky Allen take their turns at portraying supporting characters such as the Seven "Millies", who include the inventively named Ragin', Beezer, Clampet, Snatters, Knackered and Scundered, and TikTok handles such as Barra_The_Best, JamieDoorman and GaryBrightBody pop up on screen on the left-hand side of the stage.

Production photo courtesy of Brassneck Theatre Company

Yes, it's all pretty chaotic, but that's where the charm and humour can be appreciated. Along with the substance. Central to the Grimm tale was, indeed, a form of grimness - the damaging effects of the envious reaction to beauty. Try multiplying that with an emphasis on helplessness and solitude and you'll get an idea of the incisive places Keery has taken his show to beneath the surface. As fun as it is to watch Connolly deliciously ham it up as Eve L Queen, there's also something sad about her - being accustomed to online sycophancy certainly doesn't lead to lasting happiness. It's a fitting punishment if her public reputation is eventually stained, but social media has already turned her inhumane - mindlessly attempting to eradicate a concern, especially if said concern is a human being, solves nothing. Numbers, in likes, are simple and fleeting - true human connection is beautifully rewarding. And this is what our Snow, in another fantastic and fantastically appropriate Debra Hill portrayal, ultimately learns to recognise, for the benefit of the self and everyone around her.

Snow White is a very entertaining panto, but it's also a story of identities we either create or explore for ourselves to make sense of this world, not only on social media but also in the appeal of these fairytale icons and the spin that Keery, Kennedy and company put on them - the purity and knowingness in the princess, the conflict and friendliness of the huntsman, the vanity and wickedness of the Queen and the bumbling warmth of the Seven "Millies". It's an endearingly crazy world, this, where a solitary instance of "interference", however it's perceived, can upset peace of mind but where the opportunity for calm and growth can be found and remain with the right spirit and fortitude. It's the potential loneliness of the long-distance social media specialist tailored in and countered by the form of a positive people's panto – while the joyful simplicity of the tale is retained.

Simon Fallaha

The People's Panto: Snow White runs at St Comgall's, Belfast, until Sunday December 28. For more information, and tickets, click here.