Almost every Christmas throws up some oddball antidote to panto – this year’s surprise is a little gem formed from a collaboration between the children’s company Tell Tale Hearts, circus specialists Pif-Paf, a class of nine-year-olds and the National Union of Mineworkers.
It is Tell Tale Hearts’ policy to devise work with direct input from children: hence this entirely fresh take on the Grimm tale that dispenses with dwarves and introduces a team of coal miners with brass instruments and reptilian tails who form a New Orleans jazz band called the Coalface Crocodiles.
The script, by Natasha Holmes and Eleanor Hooper, has something to do with releasing Snow White and her pet black panther from a hall of mirrors while accidentally tunnelling into the theatre we’re sitting in. To be honest, I think I might better understand the logic of this adventure if I were nine, although script doctor Mike Kenny has been drafted in to ensure there’s at least a modicum of consistency.
But Holmes’s production is really all about roaming through the wild landscape of a child’s imagination, and begins in spectacular style as a man in full pit gear is winched from the ceiling while playing a tuba. Pif-Paf’s contribution is as much a feat of engineering as entertainment, as the street theatre specialists pull a giant steel climbing frame into various permutations that allude to the pit heads of the region, and enables a thrilling ariel sequence as the Crocs rescue Snow White from the bottom of a shaft.
Jack Stoddard’s music is a delightful mix of northern grit and Creole swing, and you can’t help but admire the skill set of the six-strong cast. Actor-musicians we are used to, actor-musician-acrobats are something else, and it certainly brings a whole new dimension to the meaning of Grimm up north.
- At Lawrence Batley theatre, Huddersfield, until 27 December. Box office: 01484 430528.
