Someone has *gasp* stolen the magic of Christmas from Snowdrop the fairy and we all need to help them get it back! Thus is the plot for ‘Christmas at the Snow Globe’ and excuse to get everyone involved – and included – in a fun, pun-filled festive show that didn’t take itself too seriously, or very seriously at all.

A towering tin-not-tin soldier, a surprising sibling, a miscast fairy and a stage manager who must have wondered what they’ve got themselves into are just some of the characters that join co-creator and director Sandi Toksvig on stage to solve this terribly naughty deed.

It was a lovely celebration of Christmas and hggye; narrative meets panto with a flavour of The Play That Goes Wrong. There was randomness, audience participation and carols helped along by a suitably fabulous choir. We were also called upon to assist with making some colourful decorations, a great festive activity that got strangers working together to make the place look as Christmassy as possible. It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

In and amongst it all, a ghostly yet cheerful king pranced and signed everything. Not only part of the action, they were part of the show, with their own lines, and interacted freely with the other characters. And this was every show. Yes, people, every performance of Christmas at the Snow Globe was BSL integrated. And both performances on the 22nd were captioned as well. I ended up seeing the show more than once, partly simply because I could (and because I loved it). How many pantos have a BSL interpreter for one performance, captioned for another and pretty much inaccessible for the rest of the run? And how often do we get to see carols in BSL?

It was interesting to see how the audience reacted to the interpreter, at first it didn’t seem as if the audience was sure what to make of it all but it didn’t take long before it felt like the interpreter had been fully accepted. It may have helped that weren’t afraid of a bit of visual, panto-style physical humour and after the very last carol, everyone, BSL fluent or not, knew how the interpreter really felt about figgy pudding.

My heart was already full of good cheer on seeing THAT video of the kids from Eastbury Community School performing the carol ’12 days of Christmas’ proudly playing on every screen in the Globe front of house and the fully involved BSL interpreter but when Sandi and the cast signed along with the penultimate carol… I defy the scroogiest deafie not to have a little melting puddle where their heart used to be.

Much kudos to Becky Barry the creative BSL interpreter, Daryl Jackson the BSL consultant, The Globe for being so proactive in including BSL this festive season and to Sandi Toksvig and all involved in the show. Maybe next year, a deaf elf joins the cast? Just putting it out there 🙂

Merry Christmas, one and all!

https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/whats-on/christmas-at-the-snow-globe-2019/

(THAT video is at the link – it’s well worth a watch to get in the festive mood 🙂 )