Reviews & Press Clippings

The classic tale of Sleeping Beauty is presented this week at the Sunderland Empire, with the theatre transformed to a large skating rink by 14 tonnes of ice and in excess of 10 miles of pipe work by The Imperial Ice Stars (who have already toured this show to New Zealand, Australia and the Far East) .

The story of Princess Aurora unfolds to the music of Tchaikovsky, from the celebration held to announce the birth of the Princess which is spoilt the accidental omission of the black fairy Carabossa. In revenge she places a spell on Aurora, predicting that one day the Princess will prick her finger and die.

When the Princess is celebrating her twentieth birthday Carabossa returns and hides a needle in a present for Aurora, so she pricks her finger but as she is about to die the Lilac Fairy changes the spell so Princess Aurora will not die, instead the whole kingdom will fall asleep and Aurora becomes the Sleeping Beauty.

Prince Desire finally finds Princess Aurora and with one kiss breaks the curse, leaving us with a happy ending as Sleeping Beauty marries her Prince.

This version of the story presents us with a fresh lively production, with only a small amount of narration helping to move things swiftly along.

The skating is mesmerising with the whole cast being world class professionals, led by Mandy Woetzel as Aurora (3rd in the 98 Olympics) with other skaters having won awards in Israel, Finland and Hungry as well as their native Russia.   

The production has excellent costumes and sets and maintains extremely high standards throughout, even the programme is beautifully presented.

This version of Sleeping Beauty will entertain the whole family and interestingly last nights’ younger audience (who ranged from around four years old) sat captivated throughout.

I would highly recommend this show especially as an end of holiday treat of children.