PANTOMIME is a very English thing – you only have to try an American version and you would know what I mean. It is enormously versatile, and the fairy stories on which most pantos are based are open to almost endless interpretations and updatings. There are a few essentials, forming a sort-of skeleton without which a performance is doomed to failure. They include a dame, typically played by a man in preposterous clothing, who is the hero’s mother and responsible for the most risqué jokes. There are knockabout comics, usually a pair thereof. There is a goodie, usually a young boy who comes of age by risking all for the sake of his love, who in turn is a young girl of a much higher social rank. And there is a baddie, someone for the audience to hiss and boo as loudly as possible. Music is also very important.

All these elements made their way into acoustic consultant Ian Flindell’s new version of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Snow Queen, re-named for the Salisbury Studio Theatre’s Christmas show 2025 as The Ice Queen. There were even two sets of knockabout comics, in the form of Lockerly and Burbage and Fortnum and Mason. The all-female cast was co-directed by Jill Redston and Anthony von Roretz, who also designed the set.

There are moments when this show rings all sorts of bells – Queen Wintergretta’s desire to take over adjoining countries, and very dodgy description of the less academically gifted for two. Studio debutante Millie Booth contributes some much-needed energy into this sometimes strained re-telling, which may settle down in its run from 8th to 13th December, and the performers get more accustomed to their characters. A special mention for Matthew Hodge, who had his work cut out at the Saturday matinee.

The usually excellent Studio Theatre starts the new year with a production of David Grieg’s Outlying Islands, the play that in 2002 launched the theatre career of Sam Heughan, star of the international television series Outlander. See it in Salisbury from 16th to 21st February.

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Millie Booth at the technical rehearsal, left. Photograph by Trinity Photographic.