EDP Column 6
Christmas is coming and a Thespian’s heart turns to Panto. I’ve only been in three previously, but I thoroughly enjoyed them all.
This year I’m giving my Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz at the Cambridge Corn Exchange. My dear friend Christopher Biggins, who is always Dame in Panto, is also in Cambridge at The Arts Theatre so I’m anticipating jolly times ahead. He is a true Dame, one that is not a female impersonator, but definitely a man dressed as a woman, and he directs the Panto as well, so it’s always an excellent show.
My first experience of Panto was with Lionel Blair in Reading, another Panto master. I was Fairy Godmother, which is a great part; on at the beginning, the end of the first act, the transformation scene, and then at the end, so plenty of time in the dressing room, chatting, doing tapestry and wrapping presents. My son, Thom, was at a school nearby, so he and his friends popped in all the time. I had an enormous spider in my dressing room shower, so Thom went to the pet shop and bought it some crickets – live ones for it to eat. Well, the poor thing was terrified of the crickets and ran away. So then there were crickets bouncing around backstage and in all the dressing rooms.
My favourite part of playing Fairy was the glitter. I was given a 1 kilo bag of the stuff which I hurled about with abandon causing Prince Charming to complain that it stuck to his make-up; I became known as the ‘glitter lout’. The only drawback to glitter is that it gets everywhere; months later I still found it in my underwear draw.
Singing and dancing simultaneously is another hurdle for me, it’s like the old problem of rubbing your tummy and patting yourself on the head at the same time. One night in Puss in Boots at Crewe I thought to myself: ‘You’re singing well tonight, old girl’ and then noticed that my feet weren’t moving! The dancers all crashed into me and laughed. Of course, things go wrong with it being ‘live theatre’.
Christopher Biggins in Aladdin, once during the ‘song sheet’, that’s when small children come up onto the stage to chat and get ‘goody bags’ while the set is being changed for the Grand Finale, there was a little boy who looked a bit green and then threw up all over the stage, and then threw up again. So Biggins had to get the children off the stage and summon Ping and Pong to come on with buckets and mops to clear it all up.
The children in Panto, the ‘Babes’, are amazing, seasoned troupers. On the first night of my first Panto I was waiting in the wings to go on and a tiny Muppet, no more than eight years old, said to me: “Is this your first Panto?” “Yes”, I said. “It shows” she said and tap danced unconcernedly onto the stage.
I’ve seen a few disasters in my time. I worked with a leading TV name, playing Aladdin, who’d been promised costumes specially made to fit him and when he arrived at the theatre all his costumes had Sue Pollard’s name tapes in them. It was the only time I’ve seen a grown man jumping up and down on his costume throwing a toddler tantrum. One Abanazar never knew his lines and had to have large amounts of his dialogue strategically stuck on various parts of the set, but the over-riding experience of Panto is great fun. We all laugh a lot and everyone has a good time, including the audience.
I raise a glass of champagne to you all and wish you a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!
