IT wouldn’t be Christmas without a trip to Leamington’s Spa Centre to watch a pantomime.
Imagine Theatre has built up quite the reputation over the last few years with their festive features and this year’s offering of Snow White is certainly not to be missed.
Snow White, the Prince and their friends are preparing for Snow’s 18th birthday when she will become the rightful Queen of the kingdom – but the evil Queen Holly has other ideas. When her magic mirror reveals she is no longer the fairest of them all, the Queen’s vanity takes over and she plots to kill Snow.
In an interesting twist, the evil Queen is the identical twin sister of everyone’s favourite matriarch Dame Dolly! Hilarity ensues as poor JP McCue has more costume changes than you can count on both hands – all of which are as extravagant as we’ve come to expect from the infamous Dame of Leamington!
And Dame Dolly would not be without her comedic side-kick Max, played as always by the energetic Sean Dodds. He has the audience in peals of laughter from the moment he steps onto the stage and from that point on the dynamic duo steal the show.
This year also sees some imaginative puppetry included bringing the seven dwarves to life.
This year’s panto is full to bursting with jokes, musical numbers, magic tricks and sky-high heels making it the perfect festive offering for all the family.
Snow White runs until January 5. Visit www.warwickdc.gov.uk/royalspacentre for tickets and further details.
* This year’s panto charity is Helping Hands.
The Leamington-based charity run a number of projects to help local people in need. They give people the support and opportunities to feel better about themselves so they can be more active in the community and get back into work.
They also run a soup kitchen serving hundreds of meals every month to those who may otherwise go without a hot meal. The soup kitchen has become very popular with local businesses wanting to volunteer their time and give something back to the community – including the Royal Spa Centre Programming & Marketing team who took over the soup kitchen earlier this month where they served over 40 people.
Volunteers from Helping Hands will be collecting at the end of every pantomime performance urging audience members to give what they can.
Sophie Heaviside
