Abingdon Drama Club’s winter show this year is Ron Nicol’s edgy adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen – the story which also inspired Disney’s Frozen. Nicol’s version was first staged, in Scotland, in 1996.

It is the story of Gerda, a little girl who searches for her friend Kai when he is bewitched and imprisoned by the Snow Queen in her ice palace. Gerda’s innocence charms all the people, and animals, she meets on the way.

In this show, Gerda and Kai are engagingly played by Lizzy Lister and Samuel Loft. Mike Ward’s clever back and white, smashed ice/glass stage design makes a dramatic impact as you enter the auditorium and this is sustained with the energetic and edgy entrance of the grungey trolls, whose elder, nicely performed by Jon Crowley, is the narrator of the tale.

It’s a huge cast, and it’s invidious to try to single out people in a really great ensemble, but there are particularly nice cameos from Babs Denton as the Grandmother and Geraldine Hobson as the ‘Old Hag’.

The costumes are clever and imaginative; I particularly liked the one for David Fardon’s likeable Crow. This attention to design and detail is continued throughout the play, even with fairly minor roles such as the helpful Lapp and Finn Women (Astrid Nielsen-Schuurmans and Tracy Gardner). I’d include here the Reindeer – effectively staged and nicely performed by Kieran Madden.

Character make-up is also given great thought and skill and nicely evokes the crows, robbers, Rosie Clark’s lonely Enchantress and also – especially - the icy white Snow Queen in her glitteringly frosty costume (Sara Phoenix).

The icing on the cake (no pun intended) is the dramatic soundtrack by Darren Fellerdale, which included some original songs skilfully sung by the cast.

The performance I attended was with a mostly adult audience and I could see that the show will be even better with more children watching it. The cast’s engagement points still worked though – they even had the grown-ups whispering “she’s over there” so that we didn’t wake the very scary and funny Robbers!

Director Alex Jenkins has done an outstanding job in pulling together a large cast into an energetic, fast-paced, and engaging show. The entire cast and crew contribute to a good-looking production of this festive tale.

It’s a delightful show and, if you haven’t booked yet to see it, I believe they do have some tickets left for the rest of their run (21-24 Jan).