All over for another year (oh no, it isn't)!

The most exhausting production of the am-dram year is over.

The pantomime played to ten full houses (well, I think there were a couple of empty seats on Wednesday but that’s it, so occupancy, must be 99.5% plus) who all received it with raucous laughter and rapturous applause. Cast and crew acquitted themselves with honours and should be very proud. The sight of several three year olds doing ‘Gangnam Style’ on the stage was mind blowing.

The standard was indeed very high. We had a new Musical Director this year and a new Choreographer and both have challenged the cast far more than in previous years. And the cast rose to that challenge, although as always at the last minute.  The standard of singing and dancing was superb.

This year was my thirty fifth panto, in some capacity or another, without a break. I have been either a member of the company, had a principal role, been on the crew or directed in every panto since 1978. That’s quite an achievement; maybe I should get a plaque or something. This year was my fifth as Director.

I have always loved silly humour and visual gags, both of which traditional panto excels in. Slapstick never fails to make me laugh, and someone getting a bop on the nose or smack in the face is one of the funniest things ever, in my opinion. But then I love Carry On movies, and was a huge fan of Benny Hill, who was one of the funniest comic actors that ever lived alongside Ronnie Barker. It is significant that Benny Hill, who the UK lambasted as sexist and a dirty old man, made huge money in America (which is the most prudish nation on earth) with his silly humour, where at that time they didn’t go all politically correct about it.

The benefit of writing your own scripts as I did this year is that you can change them if you want to and you can pack them full of the silliest jokes, visual stupidity and mess you want. We had a slapstick scene with the Dame getting the custard pie in the face, a rip off of a popular talent show (which shall remain nameless but has the letter ‘X’ in its title), a performing animal (a real one, not a child dressed up) and all the silly ‘behind you’ and ’oh no he isn’t’ you could possibly want. And the audience have loved it.

Lots of people have kindly said to me that this year has been one of the best pantos they can ever remember, and that is saying a lot because there have been some crackers. But that’s because it has gone back to its roots and not been messed about with.  As an art form it is so deeply rooted in tradition that you change or mess about with it at your peril. The audience has certain expectations – the stereotypical characters with all that cross dressing, chasing about, old jokes we all know, booing and hissing, mess and above all boy meets girl and a happy ending. It doesn’t matter where you set it – China, Arabia, an English village or even in the Wild West, as long as it has those ingredients it will succeed.

I’m not Directing next year and I’m seriously considering having a season off (after all this time I think I deserve it) and there is a certain appeal about having a Christmas holiday without any commitments to a show, but I honestly am not sure whether I will be able to keep away. I’ll go along to the read through and see whether there is a part for me, and then decide.

But if I don’t do it, much as I’ll enjoy the time off I know that come this time in 2014 I’ll wish I had!

Here we go again! (Oh no we don't)

Well, the Christmas Carry On circus starts for another year with successful auditions yesterday for the annual panto, which this year is ‘Aladdin and his wonderful lamp’.

As always on these occasions, I am blown away by the quality of the auditions and the effort people have put in to learn their audition pieces and songs. Yesterday we had a huge variety of songs sung to us, from the classic audition songs from ‘Les Mis’ through to vintage Pink Floyd (a first in an audition as far as I am aware!).

We have ended up with a superb cast at the first attempt and were spoiled for choice for almost every role, which makes a nice change and is most unusual.

Another thing that is nice this year is that as well as the usual faces (I call it the Christmas Carry On because it really is like the ‘Carry On’ movies, with the same faces playing slightly different but very similar roles each year) we have some newbies in principal roles, which is healthy and refreshing. Every Director goes into auditions with ideas about who might be good in which part (show me a Director who says they don’t and I’ll show you a fibber!) but on the day it’s important to keep an open mind because people you expect to be excellent can simply fail to perform on the day, and others you expect to be less suitable or whom you don’t know can blow you away. We had a few of those yesterday, and a few ‘no shows’ who may well be waiting for the phone call to ‘come along and help us out’ which this year, won’t come!

I’m looking forward to this; not only is it my own script and my well honed vision, but it will be my last show for a while as I am planning on taking a break in 2013 and so it is a bit of a temporary swansong. Panto is always knackering with three rehearsals a week and extra busyness over the traditionally hectic festive period, but the end result with ten pretty much full and very appreciative houses is always worth it.

The best part of the day yesterday was the adult movement audition, which was much more fun than the dancers or kids who always seem to pick these things up quickly and move fluidly with very little tuition. I know all these people will get it right and perform in the end, but adult principal performers just don’t pick up the movement as quickly as youngsters and you can see by the expression on their faces that they are going through half an hour of purgatory. I know that I hate it, and they do too. But it’s a necessary evil and provides great amusement for the audition panel mid way through an exhausting day.

We also had almost 30 kids audition yesterday, from which we had to pick a maximum of twelve. It’s really hard to single kids out, and with such a large number sometimes some very good ones can get lost in the crowd. Four bravely came back for a recall late afternoon, and we have a great team in place.

There’s a bit of a lull now, and we start rehearsals on 5^th October. That’s earlier than usual due to other commitments amongst the production team, but it won’t do any harm for them to get some early learning under their belts. We start in earnest with the full on three times a week late October right through to late January, then we all get our lives back.

Bring it on…

Time flies!

We are almost a week into September, and it’ll soon be Christmas!

This coming weekend is the read through for panto (oh, yes it is!). I am hoping for a good turn out; it’s a great script, we’ve picked some cracking music and the annual pantomime is for me the highlight of the theatre’s calendar. It will be colourful, noisy and hectic, and gone in a flash (literally, as far as the Genies are concerned!).

It’s unbelievable that we have got to the panto season already, though. It seems not long ago that I was away at Easter and not even considering the niceties of rehearsal schedules, community songs and the appropriate dimensions of a dancer’s bra top.

Someone once told me that the older you get the quicker the time passes and that certainly seems to be true. Each year it seems to go quicker and quicker, and events creep up on us and pass more swiftly than the year before. Of course that can’t be the case, after all 24 hours is always going to be the same 24 hours lengthwise or worldwide chaos would ensue, but it does seem like it and I don’t know what to do to slow it down. At this rate, in another few years things will have finished before they have begun!

Mentally, I don’t feel any older than I did in my late twenties. I think I make better, more considered and less judgemental decisions now and my experience in dealing with other people and situations means I do things differently, but in my mind I am still slightly alternative and non conformist. In reality, I am probably a typical middle England Tory living in an increasingly unrealistic fantasy world. But the real difference is in my physical capacity, which is definitely reduced.

I went to bed at 8.30pm the other night. The combination of dieting (which saps your energy anyway), extra walking with the dog (actually all walking with the dog is extra because I didn’t do any walking at all before) and just the pace of life are getting the better of me. I am looking decidedly haggard, or at least I think I am. The Hubby, bless him, always tells me I look beautiful but he’s a consummate liar about that sort of thing and will say anything to make me feel better (ie stop me whinging) so I have to take it with a pinch of salt (either that or he really thinks so, in which case he’s deluded and should be committed).

Does everyone feel like this? Or have I been unlucky and allowed myself to get into an unfit, overweight and isolated state and my chickens are coming home to roost?

If other people feel like it they don’t let on, so perhaps I just don’t have any backbone and ought to pull my socks up and have a stiff upper lip (a few slightly confused metaphors there, but you get the drift). I’ve always been a cope-er, but at the moment I feel like I’m sinking. Or maybe this is the state that everyone goes through when they try and do something about their health and get fitter, because doing exercise knackers you and then you don’t have any energy for anything else until you are fit enough not to need to do the exercise in the first place? It’s always been one of life’s paradoxes that the more you exercise, eventually the more energy you have.

I’ve obviously got some way to go! And lets hope that I don’t arrive before I’ve set off.

Half way through! Oh, no it isn't!

Well, half the panto run is done and yet again it is great to give such a lot of pleasure to so many people.

We have had five sell out performances so far, with another five to come. Along with everyone else, I’m exhausted and totally ready to have tonight and tomorrow off before starting again on Wednesday.

Almost 50% of our audiences so far, if not more, have been children, many of them very young. Watching them watching me, I am reminded that children, particularly the under eights, still have the capacity to be amazed and entertained by live entertainment which touches into the very roots of childhood. The simple concepts of good and evil, colour, light and visual spectacle remain, even in this sophisticated technological age, wonderful entertainment for children and adults alike.

Live entertainment, particularly live entertainment that the whole family can watch together, is more than just passing the time. It is a shared experience, a coming together of the generations in an age old activity which transcends politics, religion and other secular interests.  That doesn’t just apply to panto, it could equally well apply to other forms of artistic entertainment or even to sports watched together. Anything that everyone can participate in whatever their age, intellect or physical limitations could apply equally well.

This weekend, I have seen children’s faces lit up with pure, innocent enjoyment at the music, dancing and colour. They have cheered the goodie and heckled the baddie (me!) with enthusiasm. They have been allowed, for a brief time, to participate in something which does not depend upon violence, bad language, strife (watch any episode of East Enders, for instance, to see strife on a daily basis) or other people’s misfortune (reference ‘Stenders again!) for entertainment. In short, they have had a bit of fun and a bit of balance put back into their lives.

That might be stretching it a bit too far for some of you, but personally I would like to see more of this (ie live entertainment and activity) for our children and less of the telly and video games.  It’s very easy to detach oneself from violence or bad behaviour in celluloid, pretending it’s not the real world (although some clearly find it difficult to do so judging by the copycat actions of a few loners) but watching something with real people that you can touch has a more profound effect.

I am looking forward to the second half of the run very much. It will be more adults in the audiences from now on – it always is – but it is equally good fun watching grown men and women regress into childhood, shouting, laughing, booing and cheering for 2 ½ hours. Hopefully they will all go home having thoroughly enjoyed themselves and been able to detach from the cares and responsibilities of reality for a short while. If they can, I shall feel it’s a job well done.

Health and Safety

David Cameron has been in the news this week telling us all that he is going to relax some of the useless rules we have in Britain around Health and Safety.

Well, good on yer Dave, if you really do it. Somehow I doubt it will come to much; there will be some ridiculous protocol or something which says that what we want to change we can't, or the red tape involved in doing so will take so long to unravel that anyone but the most dedicated would give up in disgust. Or something more pressing, such as the country going broke, will take precedence. And don't forget the powerful Elfin Safety Lobby - you know, the ones that shout if a child picks up a conker or there is a pebble on the pavement they might trip over.

Middle England has a lot to answer for here, because they are the ones that over protect their kids and won't touch anything unless it has a patent safety device fitted to it which has been accredited by various expensive and usually useless national associations. Lower England can't be arsed between the footie and the bingo, and Upper England is off its head with cocaine and has staff to do things for them, so they don't care. But in the squeezed middle we all wrap our kids, and also ourselves, up in cotton wool too much and are unwilling to accept the consequences of our own actions, which we ought to take personal responsibility for. 

Of course there must be safeguards in life. Things must be fit for purpose and reasonable precautions taken so that our possessions or the things we use cannot damage or injure us, and that the things we do are safe. But you cannot legislate for everything; we all have the ability to make choices and arrange our own lives and we simply must be more prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and not let the state do it all for us, then sue someone if something goes wrong.  

Much of the legislation governing this is European and will be difficult to change. So in theory all of Europe ought to be as up themselves about it as the Brits are. But they aren't. Whenever you go to Europe you will see examples all the time of things which simply wouldn't happen in the UK because of our anal approach to health and safety. Roadworks without barriers (we fence off everything for 300 yards it seems), seaside promenades without barriers (ours are made of iron and look like prison bars, and do their utmost to keep you off the beach which is why you have come there in the first place) festivals and events with exciting activities which you would have to wear protective helmets and luminous clothing for in the UK but which people simply go along to and enjoy and, by and large, if they get hurt shrug their shoulders and accept it's been their choice to do it. As long as you are aware of the dangers, then if you chose to go ahead it's your picnic! It's a much free-er, less bureaucratic and healthy approach altogether - they have the legislation, but they take a much more relaxed approach to it.

I work at home twice a week, and I have been supplied with a nice little laptop and mobile phone to do so. I have also had to undertake four on line tests about my working environment, the equipment and my eyesight, just so my employer can tick a box to say it has fulfilled its obligations with regard to health and safety. It's daft, and I lied anyway. Of course I don't sit at a special workstation with dedicated space, I work at the dining table surrounded by the detritus of ordinary life and four cats, in an inadequate chair which I pad with cushions so it's the right height. If I get RSI, I will still claim for it!

I'm off now to do a dress rehearsal for the panto. I will wear costumes which have to be checked for flammability, walk past scenery ditto, avoid thunder flashes which could set my (non flammable) costume on fire and throw sweets at small childern which have to be wrapped so they are sterile and must be above a certain size so they couldn't lodge themselves in one of the little brats' eyes. The insideous health and safety gremlin gets everywhere, even into something as centuries old as panto.

Perhaps I could consign the Health and Safety Inspectors to the dungeon where the baddie usually gets put, which has no windows, rats and no proper ventilation. The floor would be uneven and water would drop from the ceiling onto their inadequately prepared food from a kitchen with no food hygiene certificate. I bet health and safety would soon cease to become their foremost worry then!

Getting too old?

I'm definitely getting too old. For life in general, and in particular for energetic pantomimes. First pre dress today, another tomorrow, and then two dress rehearsals, night off Thursday and then into a 10 performance run, with the first five performances in the first weekend.

By next Sunday night I shall be on my knees. It'll be home, a bath, cocoa and bed. I know I am sounding ancient, but the days of going out to party after every performance are long over and I just know I shall be a wreck, particularly as the first performance will be to over 230 very vocal brownies, cubs, beavers and rainbows. I can't really complain; after all I am a volunteer, the adrenalin will get me though and when I'm up on that stage I shall love it. But at the present moment, I am looking forward to it with dread. 

It's a very odd thing, this amdram compulsion. People ask you why you do it and to be honest, I'd have to admit I do it for a certain amount of artistic satisfaction but mainly for the applause. Applause makes you feel good, gives you a buzz and sends you out on a high. I've taken some time off for the show because it's impossible to come home and go to bed at a sensible time then go to work the next day and perform to my employer's required standard; my mind is going round and round, revisiting what could have been better, remembering memorable moments or hilarious cock-ups. I will need to watch trash telly until at least midnight if not later before I even try to sleep.

Not all went smoothly tonight and there are one or two things to change tomorrow but overall I think we should all be pleased with ourselves. What we need now is our audience to clap, laugh, shout abuse and cheer. They will lift us up from the mundane and run-of-the-mill to something much better.  As things like costumes, props, lights, the band etc are added, I can always feel my own performance lifting and the audience completes it.

So now, fairly ludicrously early, I'm off to bed to get some sleep before the busyness of the week ahead. At least that's the plan. It takes a lot of energy to go out on stage and terrify children every night - it's not easy you know - and us villains need our beauty sleep!

It's a blustery day!

As Winnie the Pooh would have said, it's a blustery day! When my kids were little that was the WTP episode they loved the most, with Pooh flying off on a balloon and Eyeore chasing him, Tigger bounding after them with enthusiasm.

Not much damage here. A few twiggy branches down and the winter cover blown off the vegetable beds. And one piece of glass blown loose, but not broken, in the greenhouse. We probably ought to count ourselves lucky - it was blowing a gale all night as well. (Of course, now I've typed that, it'll be sods law that a tree will go over or some tiles come off the roof or something).

The Hubby had trouble getting to work this morning as the Dartford Bridge was closed and the traffic was tailing back for miles. In the end he came home and tried to sit it out, it didn't improve and so he went to work by train - let's hope they were running OK. Personally, I'd have rung in, said I was marooned (in Surrey mind you, not exactly a backwater) and worked at home, but then he is a martyr to the cause of local government. God knows why, it's a thankless profession.

The cats don't want to go out. They're standing at the cat flap, obviously desperate for a pee and almost crossing their legs, trying to time it between the gusts of wind. So far, their timing has been rubbish; I saw one of them almost get blown up the garden, tail aloft, in mid stream! Very amusing, but poor creature obviously got very stressed and came dashing back in without finishing off what she was doing. It's my pretty Tortoiseshell long hair, who hates bad weather of any kind. She's probably pee'd up the rubbish in the lobby out the back as revenge for my laughter.

There have been some tragedies; I saw an interview at lunch time on the news with a poor man whose van had been crushed by a falling tree and the guy sitting next to him was killed. The only reason he escaped was because at that very moment, he had bent down to retrieve his cigarette lighter from the floor of the van where he had dropped it and was in the footwell, not sitting upright. He hasn't even got any bruises, but he'll live with the mental scar of seeing his mate die for the rest of his life.

Supposedly it's all going to calm down tonight, but get cold and frosty. That's fine. I just can't help thinking that it's panto soon and we haven't really been hit yet by any bad weather to affect rehearsals or performances. I bet Mother Nature has something up her sleeve! I won't be really happy about that until we get to the last night; rain, winds, frost is all OK, just no snow please.

Another cat has just ventured out! I'm now off to watch her out of the window, and am prepared to chuckle as the wind blows her fur up the wrong way and she tries to find somewhere out of the wind to do whatever she needs to do. They really do resemble people on the beach at Brighton trying to shelter and pretend it's a lovely day to be beside the seaside, struggling to put up their wind break. Now there's a thought - a wind break for cats! Not sure it'd catch on though; those paws are useless for holding a mallet!