Amateur Panto is the Best

Photo by Lynette Hill                  

Former pirates Pat (Kim Benton) and Pete (Tina Cherry) show off their amazing Dispensomatic machine to the Chancellor (Rod Fine) and Queen Frederica of Denmark (Matt Drew).

Professional or amateur, panto is fun.

If you enjoy live theatre and fairy tales, you will enjoy pantomime. Pantomime, or panto to its friends, is the British Christmas tradition of light-hearted, gender-bending family-oriented live musical theatre. 

It has become one of my favourite experiences since moving here. 

Professional panto is fun.   

Photo courtesy CNN

Henry Winkler as Captain Hook

It’s also a good place to find former American television stars. ‘The Fonz’ Henry Winkler graced Milton Keynes Theatre’s stage as the villainous Captain Hook for the 2008 Christmas season (Here’s a link to a CNN story about some of Henry Winkler’s other adventures in Pantoland) . For the 2010 season Dirk Benedict of A-Team and Battlestar Galactica fame played Dick Whittington’s nemesis, the evil King Rat.  

Dirk Benedict as King Rat

But amateur panto is so much better. This is where you will find panto as it’s meant to be experienced. 

My favourite panto is the amateur production put on annually by the Launton Village Players at the Cooper School Performance Hall in Bicester, Oxfordshire. The whole community gets behind it and they sell out all of their six performances every year.

It’s also the reason I’m writing about Panto now, in February.  The Launton Village Players hold their Panto in February every year because that’s when they can get the stage space. 

While the panto is loosely based on a popular fairy tale (this year in Bicester it's the Little Mermaid) the scripts, music and every other part of the production is created by local folks. 

You know the story: Young mermaid Crystal saves the life of Eric, Crown Prince of Denmark, after a terrible ship wreck. Of course they fall in love. Of course such a match is impossible. Crystal unwisely seeks the help of Ingrid, the witch of Snaggle Rock. All Ingrid asks in payment for her services is Crystal's voice. Crystal doesn't realize that Ingrid actually caused Eric's shipwreck and is quite miffed that he survived. Ingrid plots to use Crystal's voice to win Eric for herself.

Can true love prevail? Will Crystal get her man? Well, it is panto after all.

Amateur or professional, any reasonably traditional panto includes certain elements:

It's camp. 

By tradition in panto, men often play female characters and women often play male characters. (Those of a certain age will remember Mary Martin in Peter Pan.)

The Dame: The Dame is the star of the show. She is always larger than life and played to comic effect by a man in drag. She must have big hair and extravagantly colourful clothing. She is usually (but not always) on the side of the hero.

Jack, our hero: The hero of the story is generally (but not always) a plucky young boy played by a female actor. At some point in the play he/she must slap his leg in an exaggerated manner while coming to some conclusion important to the plot. If the Jack character is not the hero of the story (as in The Little Mermaid, where the heroine is Crystal) he will generally still show up as the comic relief.

The Villain: This part can be played by the Dame but that's unusual. The villain can be of either gender and is always obvious from the very beginning of the play. Every entrance the villain makes is always greeted by hisses and boos. 

The Chorus: A panto is a musical. So you must have a chorus to sing and dance and a band to play along.  

And don't forget the candy. Health and safety rules may not allow the cast to throw sweeties at ... er ... to their audience anymore, but they still manage to find creative ways to share the treats. It's tradition, after all.

This link will take you to Wikipedia's explanation of panto.