Vidar Hjardeng is a regular theatre reviewer for Talking Newspapers a news source for blind and partially sighted people. He is passionate about theatre and reviews our Audio Described performances on a regular basis. He recently paid a visit to Sleeping Beauty and here is what he had to say:-

"January can often be rather a long, dark and dreary month so a bit of cheering up, courtesy of the Pantomime season, doesn't go amiss. The ever popular Joe Pasquale is back at Birmingham Hippodrome and I went to see the first of 2 audio-described performances on the evening of Tuesday 12 Jan (the next one is this coming Saturday afternoon, 23 Jan). I'd not previously seen Sleeping Beauty done as a panto, but it certainly has all the traditional ingredients of this type of festive entertainment.

For those able to go on the pre-show behind-the-scenes touch tour, a lot of time was spent examining the Dame's (Lady Passionella's), countless extravagant costumes with yards and yards of ostrich feathers, sequins and gold! During the show Lady P comes on as a number of celebrities such as Shirley Bassey, Tina Turner and Amy Winehouse, whose outrageously high heels were also on display during this touch tour - so too was the 8 metre long stretch limo, a Rolls Royce in which Lady P first makes her grand entrance. Also available for inspection were the 2 upright cribs containing the small 'bodies' of Princess Beauty and Muddles (aka Joe Pasquale) with holes at the back so that the performers can stick heads through and appear in the cradles as their younger selves. Along with Dr Who's Tardis, we were also shown the cage used to imprison Prince Daniel, played by X Factor finalist, Ray Quinn.

The standard 'live' scene-setting notes presented 15 minutes before curtain-up, remain consistently invaluable, giving a description of the 2 principal locations - the castle, where Sleeping Beauty and the family live, and the wicked fairy's lair - along with who plays which character. I would suspect that pantomime must be one of the greatest challenges for an audio describer since no matter how much detailed preparation you do, things often change on the night, especially when the actors are feeling mischievous! The expertise of the resident Sightlines' describing team, Jonathan Nash and Margaret Spittles, was once again in evidence as they coped, in true panto style, with the unexpected"

Click here to read a Birmingham Post article which was written by Chris Morley in 2008 about our audio described performances at the Hippodrome.