She’s Behind You at Traverse Theatre – Edinburgh Fringe review

I don’t much like panto. Sorry. But there it is. So the thought of a late-ish evening at the end of a long day tracing the history of the pantomime dame didn’t fill me with joy. But this glorious, heartfelt, utterly uplifting show completely won me over.  

Johnny McKnight is one of Scotland’s most famous pantomime dames. “And pantomime dames aren’t just for Christmas, they’re for life,” he announces, having gleefully entered from – guess where – behind us, in full gingham flounce and red ruby trainers as Dorothy Blawana-Gale. 

In the entertainment that follows, directed with plenty of panto magic by John Tiffany and set within bands of bright light and within a dazzling, flickering stars by set designer Kenny Miller and lighting designer Grant Anderson, McKnight walks a brilliant line between comedian, historian and raconteur. The evening grew from a lecture he gave, but its slightly academic origins are obscured by the sheer force of McKnight’s personality as he sings, chats, throws sweets, and ropes in members of the audience for fun and games. 

He’s an entirely endearing, embracing personality and the pleasure of an hour in his company would probably be enough. But what makes She’s Behind You so special is the way McKnight uses it as a vehicle to examine his acceptance of his sexuality, the way society has changed, and the ways in which it needs to change a little bit more in order to be truly inclusive. 

He makes the case that pantomime – “the wild child of your traditional proscenium arch theatre” – is a form that needs to punch up, not down, to attack the elites on behalf of its wide-ranging audience. But he also describes how the conventions of panto – its racist, misogynistic, anachronistic assumptions – must be challenged. 

In the most searing passage, one where the jokes grind to a halt, he tells a self-critical story about a moment when he was asked to examine his own assumptions, and to question whether his own conduct as a Dame was completely appropriate. 

But in one of the most joyous he relates how – somehow – he managed to get an audience divided between primary school children and a Christian study group to cheer on a moment when two men declared their love for one another and kissed on the panto stage. 

All of this makes the show sound a bit worthy. It absolutely isn’t. It’s both engrossing and genuinely funny, powered by McKnight’s quick wit and his admirable, questioning desire to make the theatre a place with different stories to tell. I laughed until I cried, and then I wanted to cry a bit too. It doesn’t just make you feel better about panto. It makes you feel better about life.