| There is nothing like a dame |
|
|
|
Page 2 of 2 Entrances and exitsSome rules are sacred so remember left and right are as seen by the performers behind the footlights. Fairy Godmothers enter stage right - good; Wicked Fairies from stage left - bad, Latin sinister. Demon Kings emerging and disappearing through trap doors have fallen victim to Health and Safety. Homework pays off in laughs. Before opening up in Coventry or Nottingham new gags will bring in Lady Godiva or Robin Hood, and from Newcastle to Norwich there'll be football taunts about Magpies or Canaries. The Palace Theatre Manchester has Coronation Street characters on the doorstep, but the craze for sports stars has thankfully faded. It was cruelly rumoured that one such had his few lines pasted onto the palms of his boxing gloves. Very few professional performers, from actors to tv and pop stars, think pantomime is beneath them with even the great Shakespearean Sir Henry Irving once appearing as the Cook in Sleeping Beauty. Others who first made their names as singers, comedians and musical stars included Dan Leno, Harry Lauder and the all time saucy favourite, Marie Lloyd. Theirs was a time of dazzling ingenuity in lighting, costumes and special effects, which were regarded as almost miraculous. David Jason has appeared in a Cinderella, Cliff Richards in Aladdin, and more recently Wayne Sleep tripped the light fantastic as Dame Foxy Trot in Jack and the Beanstalk. Last season Ian McKellen, a Lancashire lad, gave the full Great Actor treatment to Widow Twankey at the Old Vic believing in "slapstick, audience participation, cross-dressing, morality and romance. What more could you want for a family outing?" Simon Callow, a Streatham boy, turned out as Abanazar in Richmond's Aladdin and Susan Hampshire, having said she would never do pantomime and once Fleur in the Forsyte Saga, took Cinderella's pumpkin coach to the Home Counties. All parents enjoy seeing their children perform and in the grim wartime Britain of 1942 Cinderella was performed at Windsor Castle with two real princesses in the principal parts. As Florizel, Elizabeth wore modest satin knee breeches. One of today's contemporary dramatists broke new ground in 2006, writing a fresh script for the Barbican's first ever in-house pantomime, Dick Whittington. Mark Ravenhill claimed that having been taken to pantomimes as a child and loving the spectacle, the jokes and the story, for a long time he "didn't know there was any other form of theatre". Roger Lloyd Pack, sporting a disguise to baffle his Only Fools and Horses alter-ego Trigger, made an unlikely dame. Like Shakespeare's plays, panto is Culture - oh, yes it is - which traditionally ends with rhyming couplets: The curtain's down, the show is done. Time for home, we've had our fun But make a date, be here next year To hiss and boo, and clap and cheer. Back end of a camel, anyone?Christmas cheer means supporting the local am-dram production where everyone in the community gets involved. The best pantos are homegrown, local productions involving entire communities from primary schoolchildren to retired stockbrokers. Script, songs, music, costumes, staging, performers and direction owe little to the commercial world. What is now CHIPS, our local Players, started with three families wanting to put on a show with a few children, possibly about a dozen. Word spread and the first musical production in 1982 involved 70 children. Once started everyone wanted to be part of it and the biennial pantomime, alternating with a straight play, has long been a village tradition. One year eight decades separated the oldest performer at 84 from the youngest. In 1999 the script was written by one of the original cast of 1982.  Last year rehearsals started in October and culminated in five sell-out performances in January of Jack & Jill and the Temple of Doom set in Ancient Egypt, aka the village hall. All seats cost a fiver and once all expenses had been met a handsome cheque was sent to charity. Being no thespian I make props, most recently half a dozen squirrels' tails and an urn for the pharaoh's entrails. Our dame also wrote the script, but like all the cast he/she was outshone every time the camel sidled on stage. 'Methane' was a masterpiece, powered by two burqa-clad girls within her humps. Their hands manipulated her head and rear to ensure her noxious behaviour lived up to her name. No matter what the title of the 2009 panto, by public demand there has to be a part for Methane! |
