The Theatre Royal Stratford East has long been regarded as a national treasure for its annual services to pantomime, taking a commendably integrity-driven approach and regularly producing a riot of a show without resorting to Big Brother non-celebrities, pop chart anthems or double entendres.
So this year's offering comes as a major disappointment, a show lacking in both attack and daring, despite the presence of brigands and a little robber girl. The evening is often quite as anaemic as the Snow Queen's frozen white world - conjured in an unimpressive design from the normally inspired Jenny Tiramani.
Hans Christian Andersen's famous tale about a boy, Kai, who gets a shaft of a mystical mirror lodged in his eye and heart, and who is saved only by the loyalty and love of his friend Gerda, is not a traditional panto title, and that may well account for why Hope Massiah's script loses its way so quickly in the deeper drifts of the fairytale.
As Gerda traverses the frozen wastes in search of the Kai, The Snow Queen turns into two hours that have little of the raucous energy of panto and none of the subtlety of a play. It lacks both comedy and magic.
Things begin badly with some desultory comedy between the Snow Queen's nasty furry blue trolls who never develop into the slapstick double act that the show so desperately needs. The evening never picks up pace or verve after that.
Things occasionally look up when Tiffany Graves' full-throated and deliciously evil Snow Queen makes an appearance, and Antonia Keni Coker entertains as Laila, the enthusiastic representative of the Lapland tourist board. However, if most of the performers fail to make much of an impact it is because they have very little - particularly on the comedy front - to work with. Did nobody notice the absence of jokes in the script?
Michael Bertenshaw's Mor Inge is a complete waste of a very experienced dame who has done sterling work in previous pantos here. Even the animals are plodders rather than star turns - with a mildly depressed reindeer standing in for the traditional panto horse.
· Until January 13. Box office: 020-8534 0310.
