Tina and Tam steal the show

SNOW WHITE, Opera House, Manchester

CLEARLY, leaving Corrie and taking singing and dancing lessons — the latter for her recent “Strictly Come Dancing” run — has done lovely Tina O’Brien a power of good.

Three years ago she took her first steps in panto on this same stage in “Cinderella”, alongside veteran Johnny Briggs, and both were pretty disappointing.

She’s back this year in the latest of Manchester’s high-end, expensive pantos and wouldn’t you know it, she carries the story with great confidence and sweetness, her 27-going-on-18 looks and tiny frame perfect for the title role.

Which is more than can be said for Deena Payne (“Emmerdale’s” shopkeeper Viv) as the wicked Queen and Andy Devine — formerly the drunken Shadrach Dingle of the Dales — as the Queen’s henchman.

In Miss Payne’s case, Sue Devaney — in a similar role (and indeed with a few similar lines) at the Coliseum — wipes the floor with her TV rival, while Mr Devine’s character is barely-formed and scruffy enough to be used actually to wipe the floor.

Luckily the show’s comedy is brilliantly provided by relatively unknown stage performer, Tam Ryan, who as Muddles grabs the audience’s at his first entrance, and with a combination of his gangly frame and lame jokes, keeps us laughing.

Even city DJ Mike Toolan helps to keep the fun going with a consistently befuddled look and pleasant singing voice; and the dwarfs are good fun, taking a major part in proceedings, which isn’t always the case.

Magician Mephisto seems rather tacked on to the story though, but doesn’t actually do an awful lot.

Eric Potts is again the man behind the words (and the recorded voice of the animated mirror), and brings a couple of lovely, anarchic moments when it matters — chief among them a rendition of the Spamalot “I’m All Alone” number, when the prince (Mike Toolan) sings of his solitude when virtually the entire cast is on stage with him.

That follows the finale to act one — unexpectedly, in the deep, dark forest, a zombie dance number to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”.

Like every other year, the show’s lighting and sets are big, lavish and exemplary, achieved at huge expense.

And thanks to Potts’s fondness for comedy, no longer do these big commercial pantos major in soppy duets and dance numbers — except fast and thrilling ones, to current and classic pop.