Panto on tour proves to be a hit
January 20, 2008
We all hear how hard work acting in a pantomime is and doing two or sometimes three shows a day must takes its toll. But usually it is in a big theatre where the cast can make themselves at home for several weeks and the panto company start to become one large family.
However at the other end of the scale there is a totally different production, the touring pantomime, which still does two or three performances a day, but includes packing up and moving venues between those performances!
Once such pantomime, last year, was Aladdin, which toured the North East completing thirty one performances in different venues over the festive period.
Whatsonstage. com North East caught up with Peter Lathan, who is the artistic director of KG Productions and author of It’s Behind You : The Story of Pantomime, who wrote and directed the show. He told us that the production has been commissioned by Beverly Artistes of Shiney Row to tour the social clubs of the North East from Northumberland to Teeside.
The 2006 touring pantomime of Cinderella was so successful that Aladdin was commissioned for Christmas 2007, with more venues being added. Part of the success is down to social clubs liking to do something special for their members at Christmas time and what better than a pantomime that comes to you.
When we went to review Aladdin, for Whatsonstage, there was no doubting the enthusiasm from the excited young audience. It may be the only opportunity some of them have to see live theatre and hopefully, given the chance it will tempt them to try other productions appearing in venues around the area during the year.
Peter is already thinking about this year’s show, just days after the end of Aladdin, but there are a lot of considerations to be made. First of all he can only have five actors, so Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is out! With the show having to be dismantled at the end of every performance, packed in to the back of a transit van and transported to the next venue before being set up again, a lot of thought has to go in to logistics of the show. It means the sets have to be easily transportable so the beanstalk in Jack and the Beanstalk rules that show out. In Aladdin the set consisted of three pieces of scenery that clipped together to make a triangle shape on a revolving base. There were three of the triangles that were placed together that made the background and when they turned together you had a new back ground (like three giant Toblerone tubes standing on end).
For this year Peter is working on Sleeping Beauty already, but the process takes most of the year. During February and March he will sketch out the characters before working on the odd scene or two (last year he wrote one of Princess Jasmine’s scenes in June). But it is the autumn that real works starts. As Peter and the cast have other commitments, the production comes together in fits and starts with the final script going to the cast a few weeks before rehearsals begin. Last year the tour of A Cold Coming, that Peter had directed, finished just two weeks before Aladdin rehearsals began.
At this point Peter works on the script, making changes and working out sight gags as well as welcoming the cast’s own ideas as rehearsals begin. There is a “public” dress rehearsal, usually in a primary school, after which changes are made before the tour begins.
With professional actors Wayne Miller, who plays Dame, and Iain Cunningham (Company Manager and Wishee Washee in Aladdin) Peter has two performers who really understand pantomime and know how to work an audience. which in the environment of a social club can result in some over-excited children being more than willing to participate when given the opportunity. This can make the show overrun and some cutting and rearranging has to take place, during the tour and occasionally at an actual performance. Peter expects no more than seventy five percent of his original script to survive once the show is on tour.
This year the show played thirty one performances with the cast setting off at eight a.m. if they had a morning matinee starting at ten and finishing at noon . Following the performance, they pack up the van and move on, starting again at two p.m. and finishing at four. Some days a third show is required and that will start at seven p.m. By eleven p.m. the cast are home (or possibly in the pub!) after a very long and tiring day.
There is no doubting panto is hard work and the work and commitment Peter and his cast give to bringing panto to the social clubs of the area more than shows this. But without this touring show hundreds of children would not be introduced to live theatre and are pantos not where most of us saw our first live show? Peter Lathan, Beverley Artistes and the cast should be congratulated for the hard work and effort they bring to children to the North East each Christmas.
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