After all the planning, rehearsals and behind-the-scenes work that goes into staging a pantomime, no-one really knows what will happen once the curtain goes up.
Even if the cast are word-perfect and the effects all go without a hitch there’s still plenty of opportunity for things to go awry.
For the last couple of years, covid restrictions have meant the tradition of inviting children on stage has been on hold. But unpredictable young audience members should be back this year and the cast and crew of Sleeping Beauty at Blackpool’s Grand Theatre are excited for their return.
Britain’s Got Talent finalist Steve Royle is a veteran of 1000 panto performances but no amount of experience can prepare an actor for everything.
‘I have done 25 pantos and there has never been one moment I haven’t been enthusiastic to go on. I love it,’ he said.
‘We have missed having the children on stage – there have been some great moments with them over the years. We can work really well with a great script, great effects and brilliant sets, but it can all be upstaged by some kid from the audience.
‘One of my favourites was the boy who came on stage and said he wanted a piece of wood for Christmas. I thought I must have misheard him, so I checked with his parents and they said he just really likes wood.
‘While he was doing his thing, I nipped into the wings and got someone to find him a piece of wood which we gave to him before he went off stage. His eyes really lit up, but then I saw him later and he was crying. It seems he’d been asked to give it back because it was some vital bit of the set, so we had to hunt around for another bit we could give him.
‘Another good one has actually made it into my stand up set. It was a boy who said he wanted a remote-controlled submarine for Christmas. You can just imagine him standing next to a pond not being able to see what he’s playing with!’
Steve, who lives in Chorley will be playing Silly Billy in the Grand pantomime, which runs from December 2 to January 1 and he will be starring alongside former Emmerdale and Coronation Street actor Hayley Tamaddon.
Hayley, who lives just up the coast at Thornton with her parents and three-year-old son, also has bags of panto experience. Her first appearances came with her dance school when she was young, but this will be the first time since she turned professional that she has been in panto so close to home.
‘I did panto for this company last year in Rhyl,’ she said. ‘There is no theatre like this one. I begged the company in my dressing room last year to do panto with them in Blackpool. In February this year I took a call offering me the role – I took about a second to think about it.
‘It’s like putting on a musical in a week and a half and for the run of the show, you’re in a crazy little bubble. It’s a magical thing. You have such a short space of time to learn the lines and then you’re into doing two shows a day. It’s exhausting, but it’s great fun.
‘This will be the best Christmas ever. I’ll not have to be in a hotel room, I’ll be able to go home every night and see my family. It’s going to be brilliant.’
The show is reuniting Hayley with Philip Meeks, a former tv scriptwriter who write some of her early scenes in Emmerdale. He will be playing the dame, but maybe not as you would expect.
‘I worry that dames will not be around for ever. Panto always had evolved and it should continue to evolve,’ he said. ‘We have to guard against being misogynistic. We have a duty to little girls – they shouldn’t grow up thinking he only way to be happy is to marry a prince.
‘The Dame connects with the people who buy the tickets and I don’t want to offend. I want my character to be relatable – a woman of the world who’s been round the block a few times. Maybe like a traditional Blackpool landlady, but not as scary.’
And he added: ‘It’s always exciting to do panto in Blackpool, it’s one of the great panto towns. Blackpool really does feel like it was built for panto and this theatre is one of Lancashire’s great treasures.’ #
Sleeping Beauty is one of 11 pantomimes being staged around the country by UK Productions, a theatre company founded in the mid-1990s by Martin Dodd from New Longton, near Preston.
A former Bluecoat at Pontins in the resort, Martin – who now lives in Surrey – is delighted to be back in Blackpool. ‘The Grand is just brilliant’ he said. ‘It’s a very special place. I think you could sit in the auditorium when there’s nothing on stage and still get your money’s worth, it’s such a beautiful place.’
READ MORE: Christmas shows and pantos in and around Lancashire
