It's Behind You!

Dick Whittington Kid's Performance in 2011,
In which I get exuberantly pied in the fizzog.

Pantomimes, to borrow a phrase from Marmite, you either love em or you hate em. Me? Well, you can probably guess- I love a good panto. To be fair, I love a bad panto too. While I feel I have grown up a lot recently and grown out of a lot of things I used to love, I don't think I will ever lose my childish enthusiasm for going to/being in a Pantomime at Christmas time and having a thoroughly silly romp. I know that some people just cannot stand them, and it seems that (after talking to some of my colleagues) when you've seen one the general consensus is that you've seen them all because the jokes are always the same and there's always a happy ending. But that's why they're so good as far as I'm concerned, you know that the 'Butter face' and 'Sheepdog bra' jokes* will make you groan, and you know that the good guys will always win but that doesn't stop you from enjoying every thigh slapping, "he's behind you"-ing minute. In no other type of theatre (apart from possibly stand up comedy) can the audience join in with the show in such a way- in fact, the audience interaction is usually fairly integral to the plot. After all, how on earth would the good guys save the day if you didn't tell them that there was a ghost/bad guy behind them and to get out of the way/hit him with a sword? I honestly love everything about pantomimes, from the innuendos that go flying over the kid's heads to make the grown ups titter to the costumes and the sets to the plot-holes that are neatly avoided by sidestepping them altogether to the fact they're inexplicable to people who don't hail from Barmy Britain. "Well it's a fairy tale, right, and there's a man pretending to be a woman and a woman pretending to be a man and it's really very silly *trails off*" Believe me, I've tried to explain them to international students from my university and seen the baffled looks on their faces; I always just ended up saying "It's a very good example of British eccentricity."

My first USLES Panto...and a very good example of British Eccentricity! 

I think for actors as well, pantos are a different experience to any other type of performance. I've told people that I did pantomimes at uni and almost visibly watch them turn their noses up at me like they were too good for comedic theatre. But as an actor in a panto you have to be so much better at skills like not corpsing and being quick on your feet to respond to heckles as well as the usual facing the right way on stage and remembering which way round your lines come. You have to make the audience fall in love with you if you're a good guy, and hate you if you're a bad guy and be OK with being overly theatrical and silly about every movement. You have to not mind getting a plate full of shaving foam to the face, or getting water squirted down your trousers and try your hardest not to laugh/object when the dame sweeps in and steals the scene away from everyone. But they're really rewarding to be in as well- you have freedom like no other to make stuff up as you go along, to improvise, to heckle the audience back and to have as much fun as you possibly can. And you get constant feedback from the people who watch too- cheering for the goodies, booing at the baddies and shrieking "OH NO IT ISN'T" as loudly as they can-it's all such fun. I don't think you can go to a pantomime and not enjoy yourself, because you just get swept up in the merriment and frivolity of the whole thing and come out with a big smile on your face. And here's the thing, they don't need to have z-list celebs in to be a good show-you need local actors who come back time and again because they love to make a tit of themselves on stage so that people will get to have an awesome night out full of fun.

Pantomimes will always be up there with my favourite Christmas traditions, they're not just fun for kids but big kids too. As one of the older customers said to me the other day when I took her ticket "Yer never too old, are yer?" NEVER. Get yourself down to one and shout "IT'S BEHIND YOU!" to see how much fun you can have. Brill.

And so as it's Christmas Eve tomorrow and I shall be working and hopefully watching some of the show whilst I do, I will wish you all a very Merry Christmas and hope that whatever you get up to is full of fun and happiness and too much food.

Tata!



*If you don't know I'm not telling you.