Review: Snow White and the Seven Delinquents, Scottish Storytelling Centre

Snow White and the Seven Delinquents

Scottish Storytelling Centre * *

There’s no indication that this cheeky wee Panto is anything other than family-friendly. Showing at 7pm, it’s even in a slot that a lot of parents are happy to move bedtime for, which is what it looked like a few people had done for their kids on last night.

What you might not want is for your seven-year-old to be parroting some of the language used in the show itself, or asking too many questions about Kate Middleton’s ‘boobs’. While some parts of the United Kingdom are happy to use a certain word that David Cameron deems suitable for use on radio to discuss Twitter, we live in a city, where, colloquially, it’s massively offensive and derogatory to women, not least to say completely unnecessary to the drama in which it was frequently used.

There’s also a line between good old “over the head” innuendo and lewdness that writer Alan Gordon might want to consider if he were to think about writing more panto.

There are moments of brilliance and charm that one can’t help but suspect will be borrowed by rival companies for next year’s larger Pantos – Prince Charming’s PR and the Wicked Queen’s ‘Apple’ are two cases in point.

The cast, while young and inexperienced, are excellent at interacting with and talking to their audience. The seven delinquents are a fun take on the traditional dwarves with no end of wisecracks up their sleeves and a couple with enviable comic timing, even if their presence means endless exposition and a need for everyone to get a word in at the expense of on-stage action and visual storytelling.

It’s hard to escape the feeling that with a little more workshopping, this would be an excellent Christmas show for teenagers and uni students looking for a few well oiled laughs rather than the limbo of “not quite family, not quite adult” it currently occupies.

Run ends December 18.