Frozen the West End Musical, is the most anticipated musical for girls aged 4 to 10 years old.  They tend to be familiar with both Disney films of Frozen and if you want to know the characters and the plot ask any five year old.  Set in Norway in the kingdom of Arendelle, talented Michael Grandage directs and Christopher Oram designs magical sets and costumes on the icy theme.

We open in summer with the residents of Arendelle dancing round a maypole but they don’t do the ribbon plaiting which is so hard to achieve when you’re trying to organise child maypole dancers.  The song is “Vuelie”, sung in Norwegian.  To give you an idea here is the first verse,

“Na na na heyana
Hahiyaha naha
Naheya heya na yanuwa
Hanahe yunuwana.”    

I don’t think I’ll be rushing out for my Babbel online Norwegian language course any time soon!  I have Quora to thank for this explanation, ” The song “Vuelie” is meant to be a combination of Sami yoiking and a more shortened rendition of the Sami choral song “Eatenemn Vuelie”, written and composed by the Norwegian Sami musician Frode Fjellheim.”  Sami is a Norwegian dialect and the effect of Vuelie is a chant in the spirit of “Sanctus” from the Congolese Missa Luba sung in Lindsay Anderson’s  film If…   The Sami yoik is a kind of Shamen chant associated in Frozen with the Mountain men, the trolls.  The lyric is “Beware the frozen heart.”  I suspect I may have lost my six year old readers at this point if they are not hiding behind the sofa at the mention of trolls!

Scene two is a delight in the royal princesses’ bedroom where Young Elsa (Sasha Watson-Lobo) and her naughty little sister Anna (Summer Betson) are playing to “Let the Sun Shine On”.  Serious Elsa is already preparing herself for the responsibility of being a future queen but Anna is loads of fun, cute and cheeky.  Together they build a snowman in the bedroom out of cotton and wool, a carrot for a nose, with sticks for arms and big eyes, which will become the lovable character Olaf (driven by Craig Gallivan).  The song is “A Little Bit of You and a little bit of me,” where Elsa sings about her hidden magical and dangerous powers as they put together Olaf. 

Anna is hurt accidentally as Elsa’s magic knocks her out.  The mountain men with eerie yellow eyes and green collar lights come to the rescue and explain that they can help because ice has been lodged in her head but they can’t help frozen hearts.  Pabbie (Joshua St Clair) and Bulda (Emily Mae) ensure Anna thankfully recovers and she is seen later riding around on a penny and two farthings tricycle (or would that be krone coins?)

The song “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” sees the girls grow up and the adult actors take over, Samantha Barks as Elsa and Stephanie McKeon as Anna. Their parents have been lost at sea in a violent storm scene and now there has to be a coronation.   

The gates of the palace open and we see the adult sisters together in winter clothes with dark panelled walls, Scandinavian painted flowers on wood, and purple banners with gold insignia. The reawakening song “For the First Time in Forever” features here as the palace welcomes people in.  I think this is the first time we meet Sven the reindeer (Ashley Birchall and Mikayla Jade), who for me is the star of the show in another design coup but more of Sven later.