In Praise of Pantomimes

"It's behind you!" "Oh no it isn't!" "Oh yes it is!"

Taking the kids to the panto is an essential part of Christmas for many in the British Isles.

We take it for granted - - and yet, it's a glorious and strangely British art form, dating back years - centuries, even.

People who say they don't like panto have often seen what are - for me - the worst kind: the ones which lazily star some so-called "celebrity" from a reality TV show. Just having the "celebrity" there may, perhaps, pull in the crowds - - but that doesn't mean that they can do the job on stage. Often they stand there like a fish out of water, because they don't have any of the necessary skills.

I'm always very surprised when people don't apparently understand that pantomime requires a huge spread of different skills, all to a very high level. Stick in some minor celebrity and nine times out of ten they'll be a disaster on stage and the rest of the cast will have to "save" them.

The best pantomimes, unquestionably, are the ones which don't have star names, but instead have actors who have the skills and talent needed.

You probably won't have heard of Berwick Kaler unless you live in York - -but he has written, directed and played the Dame in York Theatre Royal's pantomime since - - well, probably since the days of Dick Turpin. He's fantastic at it. Today I saw another superb Dame - - Dominic Goodwin, at the wonderful Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond, North Yorkshire. Funny, inventive, commanding, gloriously naughty and a shameless flirt with a poor man called Michael who had foolishly sat on the front row.

In case you've never seen a panto (and if not, oh, I pity you!) the Dame is a man dressed as a woman, with superb audience-in-the-palm-of-his-hand skills and great comedy ability, plus superb improvisational skills, the ability to interact with any audience and the ability to cope with just about anything that happens. Oh yes, and he needs to be able to sing and dance too. That's all.

There's also the Principal Boy - - played by a girl, with generally lots of thigh for the audience to admire - - and the Principal Girl, who can often be a bit soppy. In today's glorious Adventures of Sinbad, she wasn't though - - she was a terrific acrobat who was flung all over the stage as the baddie tried to steal her away. Oh yes, and she could sing and dance too.

In fact, all the cast could sing and dance as well as act, and most played instruments, such as the superb Jill Myers as the Princess's mother, who plays the trumpet.

And there were the traditional panto routines - - three people singing a song on a bench, and the baddie keeps stealing one away, in spite of the audience's best shouts to stop this happening. I saw this same routine at the Victoria Theatre, Halifax, last week, with our excellent Ann Micklethwaite (from the agency I work for, Direct Personal Management) as So-Shy in Aladdin. I love it when these traditional routines are reworked and reinvented in different shows.

I love the props and special effects, too - - some are expensive (such as the huge elephant puppet in the Halifax panto) and some are just brilliantly inventive. Today, in Richmond, we found ourselves on the Island of Dunnadoodoo (oh yes we did!) and we sorted out the baddie by throwing bananas at him. Everyone in the audience threw at least one. If you've never hurled a banana at a baddie, you just won't know how much fun it can be.

A thousand bananas have been involved during the run of the show, all knitted from yellow wool by the good folks of Richmond and surrounding areas. Wonderful! Hurrah for pantomimes!