Reviews: The Snow Queen

The Snow Queen is a new adaptation of the well-known fairytale written by Hans Christian Andersen. It is a perfect adaptation for schools and would make a wonderful Christmas production with lots of opportunities for ensemble work, allowing you to make the production as big or small as you like. It is also a perfect script to explore around the Christmas period during drama lessons, to allow a festive feel whilst page to stage opportunities and key themes of hope, friendship and heroism.

I personally really enjoyed that the play began with the age-old classic line ‘Once upon a time’ – this screamed fairytale to me and I liked the way that the narration captured the past and the ‘battle of the seasons’. The detailed stage directions and narration by Mother Nature allow the reader to really visualise Eves’ vision for the play. This then leads seamlessly into children continuing telling the story as a ghost story and as the play progresses, we see the two worlds of the Snow Queen and the children meld together through clever dialogue.

Snowman George and Snowman Fred bring an essence of comedy to the play with some cheesy jokes and puns throughout, including references to songs such as Ice Ice Baby.

Ultimately the play tells the story of Gerda's journey as a hero, who when Kai is kidnapped by the Snow Queen, begins her epic journey to rescue him. She meets new friends, such as Harry the Dickie Bird, along the way and endures a multiple of trials, learning a range of lessons such as never taking things from strangers. This play, in my opinion, is therefore perfect to explore with Key Stage 2 or 3 students. It is relatively short and consists of 13 scenes. The scenes could easily be divided up in a classroom environment, with small groups staging a scene, the scenes could then be put together in the last lesson of the term to allow for a performance.

What makes this play even more relatable to todays' contemporary audience is the references to the modern day, such as the Olympic Stadium, Tweeting and a Pumpkin Spiced Latte. These clever links to modern day society make it even more appealing to a younger audience and allow for easy exploration of how social, cultural and historical references are used within scene setting.