Tim Bannerman's Diary of a Pantomime 2

Well, yes. Quite.

“Call that a pantomime?” he asks. And he’s right, of course. 

I’ve only just started the first painful sketch of what I’m fervently hoping will fall miraculously into place as a fully-finished, shiny, all-singing, all-dancing, slapsticky masterpiece – but it currently feels like the North Face of the Eiger.

Traditional Japanese Kabuki theatre is something I experienced at first hand a few years back on one of my regular trips to Tokyo for an annual conference there with the Japanese Atomic Energy Authority back in the day. As an exemplar of a brilliantly colourful mix of knockabout comedy and larger than life characterisation, often set in historical context, with men playing women, song and dance and all the rest of it, and a happy-ever-after ending, it’s hard to beat. Not a million miles from a good pantomime, is it? I, on the other hand, am.

Right now, I’m deep in a Gothic horror tale with a haunted mansion, mad aunts, a Lady Bracknell of a pantomime dame, a hopeless heir to a gambled away fortune, an orphaned skivvy, a lost treasure, nine witches, a thousand year old curse – oh, I could go on but you get the idea. They’re all in there – Bronte, Poe, Stevenson, Wilde, Grimm bros, Chekhov, you name it. In a jumbled pastiche kind of a way. 

Now look, I don’t expect sympathy but a whisp of understanding is not too much to ask, is it? I’m trying not to panic but the basic fact of it is: I’ve never done anything quite like this before. 

Write plays, yes. Lots of them over the years. Quite a few for my old business theatre company (yes, there is such a thing). Fortunately my fellow founding director had such skill, discipline and sheer intellectual ability-cum-dramatic genius, he was able to turn even the most complex technical scenarios into something credible, let alone intelligible to all concerned, be they rocket scientists or roustabouts. Whereas I burned the midnight oil, trying desperately to hit the deadline. As you’re only as good as your last show, I had many dark nights of the soul. Even so, by the grace of the muse, fickle creature though she may be, I got the job done. But, all too happily over the years, I passed the baton gratefully, unless called upon in extremis.

But a village pantomime? 

I contemplated a swift one-way ticket to Bolivia, as I began my first message to the team (from my gaucho’s hut), but then – I couldn’t do that. For several reasons, obviously. Not least more apples and pears to press until not far off Christmas. And then family and stuff. And so on. Even if Gill might be glad to be shot of me before all this is done.

However, she’s in it now. Up to the neck. Can’t leave it alone. Ha-ha. Storyline, character (a witch, naturally) and all the rest, no doubt, before the curtain falls. End of first week in April. Cowslip and blossom time, for pears at least. And the first cuckoo.

Nothing for it but roll up the sleeves and get stuck in. We meet, the full pack and I, next week, for the first time – apart from that party where, after a few Malbecs, I said I’d “lend a hand”, despite the voice shouting “No, no, no!” somewhere inside my head. But the Malbec answered, “Don’t worry. It’ll be fine. You’ll enjoy it. It’s something for the community. They need their panto – and you’re the only sucker they can find to do it.” 

So it was that musical maestro, Chris, and I found ourselves in the antediluvian bosom of the Black Swan, Much Dewchurch, a dusky, fireside peach of a pub if ever there was, getting the lowdown from the panto baton-holder of the last few years. 

With our frothing pints of Timothy Taylors to hand – including her’s which, berk that I am, I had thought was Chris’s when it came out first in the eponymous landlord’s hand. “Egalitarian’s fine with me,” she said, despite the landlord’s disapproving look to me. “None of that Ladies First crap,” she quipped, wiping the froth of that first deep swig from her brook-no-fools lips with a twinkle.

And proceeded to give us the run-down of who, what, where, how, when, why with clinical precision – except for those moments of the raised eyebrow, the loquacious silence and her own, powerful version of the old-fashioned look, in answer to our barrage of questions.

We came away more sober than we left, in solemn realisation of what we were taking on. While Chris went off to sing – oh, we lead a busy cultural life in the boondocks of Herefordshire, I can tell you – I went home and shared our findings with Gill. Who bolstered my morale, bless her good soul, and applied her witchily systematic mind to the jumble of thoughts, ideas, straw-clutchings, etc that filled my cider-ravaged (when I’m not on the beer) remnants of a once creative brain.

Since then, we have pressed a fine blend of Stoke Red, Browns, with a soupçon of Dabinett, while talking of plot and character at every opportunity. We also dug through our endless archive of recorded programmes on the telly and found the wonderful “Cinderella”, directed by Kenneth Branagh, starring a chilling Cate Blanchett, as step-mum, a heart-meltingly seductive Lily James as Cinderella, Derek Jacobi as a kind-hearted king and some delicious supporting characters too numerous to mention. So that gave us a few ideas – and made me cry. Well, without “Call the Midwife” to poke the tear-ducts, what do you expect? And then the stunning “Wise Children” adapted from an Angela Carter story by Emma Rice – which, if you haven’t seen it, find it. As an example of brilliantly imaginative ensemble performance combining all the arts, it’s hard to beat. Much like Kabuki.

So here I am, listening to the owls calling to me, or is it laughing at me, out there in the dark after a long day pressing, with Gill downstairs expecting a run-down of plot and character over our evening aperitif. Better get on with it then.