Fine Chisel’s Beneath The Blizzard is set in a dystopian future where a raging blizzard keeps humanity hiding deep beneath the surface in a maze of tunnels. There are monstrous snowmen who can ‘swallow somebody whole without even chewing’, resources are low and life is desperately hard. To keep the feeble electric lights flickering the Mayor demands that everyone pedals furiously on generators for long hours. He is a mysterious figure, known only by his disembodied voice, but he has absolute authority. His grim mantra is, ‘Everybody strives, everyone survives.’ It all sounds bleakly Orwellian, but Beneath The Blizzard is a show full of laughter and excitement. The action centres on Sprout, who rebels against the Mayor’s stern order that there will be no more musical entertainments. Megan Brooks plays Sprout as an endearingly enthusiastic and excitable young woman; she’s fast-talking, impulsive, impatient and eager to do something. In other words, she’s very like an eight-year old child, and quickly establishes a rapport with her primary school audience. All other parts are played by Andy Kelly and George Williams, with all three of the cast also showing considerable skill on a wide range of instruments, including keyboards, clarinet, guitar, accordion, violin and spoons! There’s good close-harmony singing, and some cleverly-worded foot-stomping songs – I particularly liked the defiant ‘It’s Red-Hot Beneath The Blizzard’.
There is no fourth wall in Beneath The Blizzard, and audience participation is a key aspect of the show. The legs of the chairs and tables the children sit at become obstacles in the dark tunnels that the cast crawl through, and much delighted giggling arises from the simple device of shining a torch on individual children’s faces. There is further amusement when accompanying teachers become the targets of some improvised humour. But it is not all silliness, and a strength in the writing is that the target audience is not patronised. The language has real wit and the story touches on some important concepts, such as power and control, loyalty and friendship.
Though Andy Kelly and George Williams are impressively versatile, there are perhaps a few too many different characters in the story, and there are some sequences that detract for too long from the main thrust of the adventure. However, children will love the silly jokes, the noisy songs and the moments of peril in the darkness of the tunnels. Tom Spencer has directed Beneath The Blizzard with a very sure sense of what kind of entertainment keeps eight-year-olds glued to their chairs for the best part of two hours. Will Sprout rescue her friend from the collapsed tunnel, and will she discover the truth about the Mayor? It’s worth seeing Beneath The Blizzard to find out. ★★★★☆ Mike Whitton 11th February 2017
