Here's our first review, from Chopsy Bristol, an independent website based in Bristol, featuring news, reviews, events and features for families.
Secrets of Snow – Slava’s Journey
New Film by Blue Canary Films
Secrets of Snow – Slava’s Journey
It’s a beautiful wintry world, populated by quirky characters living in moments of melancholy, fun and curiosity. What binds it together is snow. Lots of it. It swirls, it flutters and it blasts in a blizzard. Cobwebs entangle onlookers and ginormous balls fly through the air to L. Subramaniam and Stephane Grappelli’s Conversations. In a setting of ice and snow it radiates warmth and happiness to those who come. It sounds like a dream, but if you’ve seen Slava’s Snowshow on stage you will know it’s an incredible, immersive piece of imaginative theatre.
The show was introduced to UK audiences in 1994, won an Olivier Award for Best Entertainment during its 1998 run at the Old Vic and has been performed in 80 cities including New York, Paris, Rome, Hong Kong and Moscow.
It’s worth pondering that if its creator Slava Polunin had been a British school child in 2018, rather than a performance artist from Soviet Russia, the Snowshow would never have existed. A quirky, creative child in the UK who never tied their shoelaces, walked in the middle of the street and dreamed of becoming a clown would likely be referred to the community paediatrician.
But, luckily for theatre goers, a childhood background of digging tunnels in six foot deep snow to creating elaborate fantasy worlds in performance theatre gave us the Snowshow.
Was it possible to take this show about snow back to Russia during the coldest, darkest part of its winter? And on the train?
It was an adventure that a group of South London film makers went on. Blue Canary Films followed the clowns for their new film Secrets of Snow – Slava’s Journey, to take the snowshow back to where it all began.
It’s in the final stages of editing with a new trailer due out soon.