Pick a Panto

So as I mentioned, I have been made the chairman of the local theatre club. My first two jobs is to form a reading committee and select the pantomime that we intend to put on in January (given the nature of the college I’m working on, there’s not realistic way of putting the panto on in January).

This is an oddity of choice. It is essential that we have a reading committee to ensure that the play we put on is appropriate based on the acting/directing talent we have available, fits our audience demographic and promotes the unpaid professional image we want to portray. However, here I am reading loads of pantos on my own, and it will be me alone that selects the script.

While I need the reading committee, time dictates that I have to make the call on the panto to ensure that I can secure the set, builders and costumes required. For any of you that have been involved with the production size of a pantomime, you will know that these are expensive and logistically challenging shows. I have not been able to put together a panto in less than 5 months. Hence, here I am reading like a loony (and I want more time to write).

And I’ve noticed something about the pantos that I have read. They fall into three categories:

1. Professionally presented off the peg pantos. These are very prescriptive, detailing the traits that each character possesses. This makes for a huge challenge for the director, as they will have to shape their actors to fit the role. While this is admirable in plays, for panto this makes for a huge challenge as panto is often the first experience of acting for people. Indeed there is a huge pool of actors out there that only do panto.

2. Small press pantos. These work well for me. They are pantos developed by amateur groups based on their previous successes. They also tend to have what can only be described as traditional panto humour. This makes them ideal for a company such as mine, as I can adapt the character to fit the actor I cast and I can tweak the humour to fit my audience and the abilities of my on-stage cast.

3. Off the wall pantos. Much like the first category, but with themes that don’t instantly make you think ‘Pantomime’. These can work well, as I have just read “The Three Musketeers: Le Panto!” Not something that I would have automatically reached for, but it is very entertaining. But then there was “Bluebeard”. I thought we were going to be looking at a pirate themed panto (al la Treasure Island). But on no… Again these are often very prescriptive.

What has disappointed me is the level of humour in the professionally presented pantos. The gags are predictable (and I’m not talking about the traditional ‘It’s behind you’ and ‘Oh no you won’t’ routines). I hate gags where you know the punchline when someone sets up the gag.

“The Three Musketeers: Le Panto!” is going to be my second choice this year (as I intend to present 2 pantos to the committee placing arguments why I have selected on over the other). It is a well constructed panto with humour that I can just about tweak. But it’s downside is that it is very set dependant (and there are lots of them), prop heavy (and we’ll have to make most of them) and cast intensive (a panto with 14 named characters and requirement for a chorus on top).

So at the moment I’ll be suggesting a small press script for Cinderella. Not only will it be easy to sell tickets for that production (after all it’s the panto all the little girls want to see) but the characters are open enough for me to play with my cast, it’s realistic about set (although there are a lot of tumbler scenes – and I’ve just los my hoisting rig) and the humour is spot on (and can be tweaked to make it local focused).

But that said, maybe I’ll read another script in the next few days that makes me change my mind. But seeing as I am trying to get professionally produced and have made the move to self-publishing my scripts at the moment, there is something warm in me about using a small press rather than Samuel French.