Is this Costume Racist?

Sergeant Pepper's uniform in construction
Photo by Ben Richards © 2022

The Aladdin Controversy: An explanation

Most panto Aladdins are, as the traditional folk story, set in the town of Peking. (If you thought it was set in Arabia, blame Disney.)

Forty years ago if you went to see Aladdin the panto, you may well have been treated(?!) to white men in yellow make-up and fake teeth wearing lampshades on their heads and doing a "Chinese language test" in a "fahnnee voyss".  Thankfully you're much less likely to see those kind of shennanigans on stage nowadays - I have a feeling most modern audiences might be more inclined to complain than applaud if confronted with that kind of otherisation.

• Aladdin Pantomime Poster from 1886
  Public Domain, from the British Library's collections, 2013

• 
  

However, Aladdin has (up till now) managed to trundle on.  It's a popular story: the kids know the Disney film and making a panto is so ruinously expensive, producers are keen to realise the value of their investments in costumes, sets and flying carpets.

Recently however, the panto title of Aladdin has been subject of no little disquiet.  Some people have called for greater ethnic diversity in casting. Some people argue that productions would be best cast only with actors from the global majority.  Some people are of the mind that having a show set in China is, in and of itself, so problematic that the best thing to do is ditch it entirely.  Indeed, so vociferous is the criticism from some quarters that some companies are doing just that.  Crossroads, the UK's largest pantomime producer stopped producing Aladdin last year, and I hear on the grapevine one of the other biggies is on the cusp of following suit.

Although I personally don't share these positions, I must confess I find it all extremely interesting.  So interesting, in fact, that I started to study a PhD in it.

So lively is the debate some may be cautious to express counterposing opinions.  One could almost imagine there may have been some very big meeting (presumably in London), only somehow somebody misplaced your invite, and now it's too late: everything's already been decided.

A couple questions which I have been asked during my research:

Question 1: On Panto Day (a lovely bit of fun that brings the industry together) did the admins of the official Twitter account retweet all the fun messages sent by the casts, except those performing Aladdin?

Question 2: Have I noticed the scarcity of nominations for actors in Aladdins amongst this year's UKPA nominations?  Is there a blanket ban on white actors being nominated for acting in Aladdin?

I must confess, when these questions have been put to me, I haven't had an immediate answer.  The fact that they are being asked is, in an of itself, of note, and certainly prompts thought.

Speaking for myself, I do think that if the grandees have decided that Aladdin must die, I wish they'd send a round robin email so at least we all knew what was happening.  It may even facilitate some debate!   By contrast, stage-managing a surreptitious slide into obsolescence surely stifles constructive debate.  Death by a thousand cuts is the cruellest murder of all!

The Aladdin Controversy: A Dissenting Opinion

When we decided to stage Aladdin, I never had a doubt that I would set it in Peking. My husband takes the lead on the set design, but I remember the thrill of making the mood boards, all the lovely reds and golds, dragon curves and gongs and pointy roofs.  

Hong Kong where my dad grew up
Photo by Skyseeker under Creative Commons Licence Attribution 2.0

I like China. My dad grew up in Hong Kong and my mother was down the coast in Singapore. I like Chinese style, I cook Chinese food, I have Chinese friends.  I particularly love the aesthetics from the mid to late Ming dynasty (roughly equivalent to the late medieval period in Europe) - the art, the fashion, the architecture: it really is rather quite splendid.  We drew upon it a lot as inspiration for our set design.  We researched, synthesised, imagined; we made a model box to make sure it was just how we liked it.  Then we bought and cut the wood to make the flats, we build the portals, stuck on glitter, we painted the cloths, we sewed the costumes and when we had finished, everything just the way we imagined it.  Wonderful, magical, Chinese.  An idealised pastiche of China, for sure - but our ideal, for our show, that we made. 

Some may say they don't like the style, but that’s OK by me. There are those who like Aladdin set in London (Lyric Hammersmith, 2021) or a haunted funfair in Manchester (Oldham Coliseum, 2021), and when they build their pantomime, they build the style they like. It’s a big wide world, and there’s more than enough room for a few different styles of Aladdin then people can take their pick. 

 In the words of the bard: 

"What if my house be troubled with a rat, 

And I be pleased to give ten thousand ducats To have it baned? 

What, are you answered yet? 

Some men there are love not a gaping pig, 

Some that are mad if they behold a cat, 

And others when the bagpipe sings i’th’ nose 

Cannot contain their urine; for affection, 

Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood 

Of what it likes or loathes"

 - Merchant of Venice, Act 4.  © Billyboi S-Peare (Olden times) 

I’ve butted heads with some who argue that the use of Chinese styles is at best misplaced chinoiserie, or worse, base Orientalism. I’ve heard it argued that it poor behooves a show to reduce the complex heritage of an ancient and diverse civilisation to hackneyed representations of Eastern iconography caricatured in broad and brassy brushstrokes.  But to me, this argument holds little water. 

Of course it’s pastiche, we’re making a panto. Broad brushstrokes is a key convention of the genre. If anyone’s making a panto that doesn’t look like a brassy caricature, they need to buy a broader brush. Yes, I know China’s not really a magical glittery kingdom. It’s not a realistic art form. Mother Goose is set on a farm, nobody complains that the stage isn’t covered in animal dung. (In actuality, I gave my Aladdin script a socialist bent and we ended up staging 60% or the scenes in a modern favela).

Shylock confronts Bassanio on the Rialto
William Shakespeare, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Power of Costume

“Symbols and representations are important in the production of identities. This is how we signal our identities to others and how we know which people we identify with and those who are distinguished as being different. How we speak, the clothes we wear, badges, scarves, uniforms or flags all offer symbols of identity.”

- p12. Questioning Identity: Gender, Class, Nation. Woodward, K (2004) p12.

Costume has power.  We harness it in our daily lives: a suit for work projects seriousness of purpose, a hard hat implies you’re a safe pair of hands. An expensive long white bridal dress symbolises purity, virginity, and a willingness to get into credit card debt to look good for the photos. Costumes are symbols, they have meanings: emergent properties, borne from the shared cultural values of the wearer and the viewer, made manifest through the act of wearing. 

For example: in my former life as a master of a boarding school, I Bunburied about Hertfordshire wearing a traditional academic gown... the kind Mr Chips would use to dust the chalk off the board. Many of the senior staff wore them - swooshing up and down the corridors. It gave authority, presence. It said: "here is a man (for it was just the men) with degrees and experience; listen to him; he’s clever; he must have something worth saying."  I didn’t. Not often. Nor did the gown make me any more clever than I had been without it. But it allowed me to claim these ethereal benefits. The ownership of the gown was merely incidental. It was the wearing of the gown that allowed me ownership of an elevated status. 

By this simple example we can see how semiotics (signs and symbols) allow the wearer of a costume to claim the qualities and characteristics with which it is associated. And herein lies the rub: the question of who owns the costume is just a matter of receipt. The question of who owns the meaning is often times contested.

Who owns Meaning?

"Meaning is an emergent, not intrinsic, property."

                        -  Me © Right now

What do I mean by that?  Let's try a thought experiment.  Imagine being in a crowd at the Louvre looking at the Mona Lisa.  Everybody's cooing and jostling: taking a photo - isn't she beautiful?  Do you think she's beautiful?  What is the source of her beauty?   Is it inside her, the model?  Or in the brush of the artist?  Or is it perhaps in the way you perceive her?

Mona Lisa Lolcat
by Planetrussell is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Now, imagine walking up and snatching that painting right off the wall.  Imagine how it feels in your hands.  How much does it weigh? Guess.  Did you guess 2.4 kg?  You might be right.  I don't know.  I didn't bother to look it up, I'm just banking on you not being bothered to either.  Whatever it weighs, the point is it weighs.. something. 

Imagine getting a bread knife and scraping off all of the paint, dismantle the frame, screw up the canvas into a ball and pop all the pieces into a blender.  Lift it up.  Heavy isn't it?  That's because the property of weight is intrinsic to the object.  You cannot separate it out.  It's in it.  It is it.  

But pour out all the bits and try and find the meaning.  It's gone.  It's not there.  The meaning is not in the painting, it is emergent.  It's a byproduct of interaction: between Da Vinci and the paint, between the model and the artist, between the tourists and the museum.  It's very real.  Meaning is (like beauty, monetary value, love) a miraculous by-product of thinking minds experiencing their own perception of the universe.

So, now that we understand this: Who owns meaning?  How do we decide that?  What does it even mean to own an emergent, intangible commodity - one that we value so highly? 

These aren't churlish questions.  People constantly make all kinds of claims on ownership of meaning.

In this blog, I've made a claim to ownership over the meaning of my production on the basis that I made it.  Actors may claim to own the understanding of their characters.  Likewise audience members have told me with pride "This is our panto.  We come every year!".  We stake claims to ownership through the act of identification.

The Scot who berates an Englishman for wearing a kilt because he identifies both the kilt and himself as Scottish. An administrator may not retweet a Panto Day video because they identify the cast as European but the story as Chinese.

Claims of cultural appropriation are really claims to ownership, staked through identification.  They are claims that although you may own the costume, somebody else owns the meaning.  

I have sympathy for this argument.  It's irksome to get rubbed up the wrong way, particularly by someone who's glib and uncaring, more-so on topics to which you feel deeply attached, and if you experience similar things on a regular basis, it can be truly excruciating.  Identification can be a useful defence.

The sociologist Kath Haywood puts it very well:

"In this sense, although as individuals we have to take up identities actively, those identities are necessarily the product of the society in which we live and our relationship with others... It is a socially recognized position, recognized by others, not just by me."

                                                     - Questioning Identity: Gender, Class, Nation. Woodward, K (2004)

When people make claims to ownership it's important to pay attention.  A willingness to listen and imagine another's perspective are key resources, not just in theatre, but in life.

However, meaning is emergent.  There is no meaning in the costume itself.  Meaning is generated in the act of perception.  

Different people may make competing claims to ownership for different reasons, and they may both be justified.  To claim exclusive ownership over meaning is to privilege your own interpretation over that of others.

I'm proud of our shows, of the scripts that I write, of the team we've built, of the costumes we've sewn, of the sets that we've made, of the audiences we've grown.  I identify as the producer of my work, and I would like to stake my own claim to its meaning.  

In the same breath: I'm delighted that others also want to make claims to ownership over the meaning of the work I create.  The ownership of lived experience which I do not have.  A multiplicity of voices can add understanding and depth to art: surely they should inform debate, not close it down.  

Unfortunately, in these days of echo-chamber media, the fragmentation of public discourse is such that, in some cases, the voices that are amplified are the ones shutting down debate rather than opening it up.  To that, I say: the antidote to conflict is conversation, not censorship.

At Last... The Costumes: You be the Judge!

I wanted to reference the beautiful designs of Hanfu (traditional Chinese fashion) - Hopefully while steering clear of cultural appropriation.  I took out some books form the library and used them to pattern a wide sleeved jerkin with a closed front and a Nehru collar so that (hopefully) it's shape was reminiscent of a Tang jacket.

Policemen Costumes.  Hanfu-style cut.
Worn expertly by the hilarious duo Sarah-Lou Young and Tessa Vale
Photo by Ellie Geurin Ⓒ 2022

I steered away from shot silks, which although they are very traditional in look, don't really fit in with our house style of bright and unfussy primary colours.  Instead, I went for a Chinese-British mash-up, combining the Hanfu cut with the traditional check and blue cord of an old fashioned bobby.  We did embroider Chinese lion badges which we emblazoned on anything Royal (the Empress, the palace, the policeman) which I think just jollied everything up a bit, as well as foreshadowing a climactic moment of peril.

Hanfu-Style Suits in Complementary Patchwork
From left: Wishee Washee (Will Cousins), Aladdin (Michael Pellman)
Widow Twankey (Dom McChesney), Abanazar (David Herzog)
Photo by Howard Barlow © The Big Tiny 2022

I used a similar same shape for Wishee Washee and Aladdin (I'm not going to broach the subject of the character names yet - but I'm very aware there's a range of opinions).   We drew inspiration from the laundry scene and came up with the idea for the purple and patchwork design.  Gosh, there's a lot of sewing in that patchwork suit!  I love the way they turned out.  They all look quite different, but still like a set.

The Empress's Dress
Look Closely... that's not Tessa's wig.  It belongs to our Dom the Dame who's standing behind!
Photo by Ellie Geurin © 2022

The Empress costume was hellish to make.  There are layers on layers of padding and linings and all kinds of different materials that all want to go different ways when you sew them.  Cripes, we did a lot of swearing the week we made that dress.  The bold colours make for an eye catching entrance, and it's still very 'ancient Chinese' in style.  In fact, the pattern is based on illustrations of actual Chinese Empresses.  The worst part was actually finishing and then having to make it again for the walk down!

The Finale Set
Just when we thought we were finished: 'We'll have to make it again then won't we?  Whoops"
Audience Snap

We worked really hard on the build for Aladdin, and I'm really proud of what we achieved.  We made it with love, (I'd be mortified if I thought that I'd made a panto that upset someone) and a lot of forethought and yes - I set it in China... and as it stands, I feel comfortable with the decisions I made.  In fact, I think it was smashing.

"What shall we do with him, boys and girls?" Reclaiming the Villain

The slap heard across Liverpool

Last week I went on a school trip!  An Inspector Calls at the Liverpool Empire (the one directed by Steven Daldry where the house… well, something happens to the house - I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t seen it. (Also, you should really have seen it at least once by now, it’s been 30 years!)

Marquee for An Inspector Calls
Photograph by Colin Smith © licensed under Creative Commons

An Inspector Calls is a GCSE set text, which means: a) even though its a 1940s drawing room drama, you can sell out the Liverpool Empire, and b) your average audience age is about 15.

If you don’t know the play, there is a part where Miss Burling, newly engaged, finds out her fiancé has been keeping a mistress (SPOILER ALERT - But you really should have read it by now, it’s been out for 78 years!).  An argument ensues, topped off with the most almighty crack as she slaps him across the face.  It is a Real-Housewives-cum-Kardashians moment anachronistically thrust into a 1940s stage play.  The young audience, apparently more used to watching bar-brawls than theatre, approved very much of the love-rat's comeuppance: whooping, clapping and whistling - if JB Priestly ever wished he would write a Jerry Springer moment, his wish has been granted.

I must confess, the children I was sitting with from Rydal Penrhos were impeccably behaved.  The two in front of me even joined in with the customary roil of teachers' shushing, and it wasn’t long before the youthful crowd’s enthusiastic outburst was tempered.

Audience expectations

When it comes to putting up with teenagers at the theatre, 15 years as a secondary school teacher have given me a thicker skin than most.  It is easy to forget, that the before the great and the good inculcated our contemporary culture of respectful silence and earnest consideration of character development, the theatre used to be a palace of raucous delight, where audience members were as likely to shower the actors with food as applause.

Illustration of Elizabethan Theatre,
w. thanks to C. Walter Hodges, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

It is a learning point oft remembered that Elizabethan and Jacobean theatres were built in a similar style to bear baiting pits.  Blood sports were incredibly popular in our glorious iambic past.  Audiences were just as likely to buy a ticket for a cock fight or a bear knuckle boxing match as they were to attend a theatrical performance.  To an OG Shakespeare season ticket holder, the jeering, drinking, and jostling through the throng were just as much part of a great play as they were a good bull fight.  Theatre in the round puts the actors in a vulnerable position: they are enveloped by the audience; they don't just perform for us, we commune with them.  Indeed, shortly after Ben Johnson debuted Bartholemew Fair at the Hope Theatre, the venue changed its name back to the Bear Garden.

In the wonderful page-turner The Pantomime life of Joey Grimaldi by Andrew McConnell Stott we are treated to eye witness accounts of some of the earliest shows that we would recognise today as panto.  Producers plying their customers with cheap booze, audience members jumping  over the circle balcony and up onto the stage, followed inevitably by police interventions.  Theatre was vital, visceral, communal.

Poster advertising panto pioneer Joey Grimaldi

We don't even have to go back as far as Joey Grimaldi to find traces of a more vivacious theatre culture.  For only sixpence for a stalls ticket, audiences packed out music hall and variety shows even within living memory - a form of entertainment with "a reputation amongst the middle classes for their vulgarity and distasteful performances."  Doesn't it sound delightful?

Pantomime is the honest descendent of these traditional performance cultures.  Of course the audience want to shout out and warn the hero "it's behind you!", obviously we want to boo and hiss the evil Abanazar, naturally the school kids go wild when the heroine slaps her philandering fiancé.  It is the expecectation of wallowing, detached in moribund silence that is peculiar.

The REAL Housewives of JB Pristley

Back to An Inspector Calls for a moment.  As the play unfolds, there are further stage combat sequences.  The young Burling boy manhandles his father and smashes a whiskey bottle, but special effect break-away glass notwithstanding, the children were less impressed.  By that point, the character in question has already been unmasked as a rapist, and though he has a good go at repenting, it’s hard to root for him completely.   The various revelations garnered fugues of “ooh”s and “aah”s, but nothing topped the response to the slap… It turns out, lamping a love-rat is a veritable crowd pleaser.

The cheater is wicked. He deserves to be punished. At its heart, pantomime is built around Manichean narrative structure. Fairy Bow Bells is good, Queen Rat is evil. We want Jack to save the day, we are delighted when Fleshcreep is crushed by the toppling beanstalk.

And why not?

Doing something better

Unfortunately (to my mind) there exists in certain circles a propensity to water-down and bowdlerise the narrative on the pretence of upholding contemporary mores: 'We shouldn't glorify violence', 'we should be teaching our kids to forgive and make-up'. Nonsense!  

How many times must we endure Fairy Feeble telling us: "I know, if I wave my magic wand Carabosse will become good again?" What a yawnfest! Drama requires climax; catharsis. Not mealy mouthed moralising from magical misfits. When we put on a panto we proffer a promise: trust us, come with us and we'll take you on a fantastical journey through trials and tribulations, love, laughter, jeopardy and hi-jinx. At our behest the children harry the evil doer, they sit on the edge of their seats when Red Riding Hood is chased by the wolf, their hearts are torn in two when Cinderella rips up her invitation to the ball. For what? So in the last 5 minutes we can say "Oh well, it didn't matter anyway. There are no consequences. Pick up a programme on your way out!" What's the lesson the kids are supposed to take away from that? They should try harder at magic? We might as well just project the words "And then they all realised it was only a dream" and be done with it.

We all know what our audiences want. When Robin Hood finally bests The Sheriff in act 2 scene 6, he raises his sword high in the air and cries out "what shall I do with him, boys and girls?" And what do they shout back: "Kill him!" Like clockwork, every time.

The wonderfully wicked Sheriff played by Big Tiny legend, Larry Stubbings
Robin Hood, Huddersfield (2021) ⓒ The Big Tiny

The spuriously qualified yet somehow still-vaunted father of fairy stories, Bruno Bettelheim (don't get me started - my rebuttal will need it's own blog post) argues that

"the appreciation of mercy… baffles the child.”   

- Bettelheim, B. The Uses of Enchantment (1976) p144

It stands to reason.  In his review of Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird, the late, great GK Chesterton tells us why:

"for children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and prefer mercy."

 - Chesterton, GK.  On Household Gods and Goblins (1922)

The wickeder the villain, the more delicious is his downfall.  Last year I incorporated a daring and novel twist into my script of Aladdin.   From the very first line of the prologue, Abanazar is promised by destiny that he shall rule the world in the end.  His fate is never in doubt (of course not... he has an omnipotent genie - duh!).  In the final scene, when the Twankeys, the Empress, policemen and Jasmine are all cowering before him, he unabashadly relishes his triumph:

Abanazar: ... continues

And that’s the real moral, kiddos - nothing matters, only power
The strong will take their fill, the weak must step aside and cower
Teamwork doesn’t makes the dreamwork,
True love never finds a way
Good things come to those who seize them
Cheaters win and crime does pay

Hahahaha.  Hahahaha.

“But the goodies always win in the end.  It’s a pantomime.”
Newsflash: This is the end.  The last page, the last speech, the last seconds.  I’m afraid you’re all out of time.

Thank you for coming and cheering your side
If you want to know what happened next, they all died.
You did your best booing, but my victory was built in
Try a bit harder next year’s Rumplestiltskin.

I wish you all the most unhappy Christmases, and a horrible New year’s day
Bog of home you bunch of losers.  And that’s the last line of the play.

 - Aladdin by Ben Richards © 2022, The Big Tiny

And true to his destiny, as the last line of the play is spoken, Abanazar clicks his fingers and... BLACKOUT.

You could hear a pin drop.  Every night, it landed.

Here they sat, hundreds of children and adults alike, so invested, so horrified, so caught up in the tale we wove, that they gasped as one body.

I shan't tell you exactly how Aladdin managed to get himself out of that: but enquiring minds can read the review here.

The point is, IT MATTERED.   

Did we forgive him?  Not on your nellie!  Did he magically turn good in the end?  Does any villain?

The fairy tales upon which pantomime is based started off as cautionary tales.  Don't accept sweets from the wicked witch, steer clear from the big bad wolf,  if there's a bear living somewhere don't let yourself in.  Where are the cautionary tales for modern day threats?  I've never been chased by a wolf, but I've met a few conniving narcissists who believe it's their destiny to rule the world. 

So what did Aladdin (and everyone else) learn in the end?  Simples - not everyone should be trusted, kiddos.  Some people are only in it for themselves, so keep your wits about you!

Or, as Abanazar himself summed up during the dum-de-dums:

"Beware those who use their power to coerce,
They make themselves feel better by making others feel worse"

- Ibid

Give the people what they want!  Let them enjoy Miss Burling's revenge!  To all that would hear it, this is my rallying cry "Bring back the villain.  Make panto better."

P.S. I can't wait for you to see what I've been doing with Rumpelstilskin.

The supremely talented David Herzog as a triumphant Abanazar, Market Drayton (2022)  
Photo by Howard Barlow © The Big Tiny

Has Panto Lost the Plot?

The Ineffable Wisdom of Nigel Ellacott

Two weeks ago I attended the first pantomime symposium hosted by UKPA and Staffordshire University. The day was split into three panels, and during the second panel, entitled: In the Spotlight - Performers’ Perspectives, panto favourite Nigel Ellacott (who last year was awarded the UKPA lifetime achievement award) was invited to reflect on what he felt had changed during his long and lauded career. His reflections prompted a lot of back and forth amongst the panel about feisty princesses and principal boys, and amongst all the constructive debate, he made one more reflection: “I’m sure panto used to have more of a plot.” 

NB the quote marks are merely aesthetic. I’m almost certainly paraphrasing, but I hope you’ll forgive me… the official transcript is yet to be published, and I’m working from handwritten notes. Amid the throng of lively debate, it was a blink and you’ll miss it moment. But it was a comment that resonated so strongly with my own experience that I heard it as loudly as if he were striking a gong. 

To my mind, this singular observation, encapsulates panto’s biggest problem. Moreso than any of the more topical issues that generate headlines and animate practitioners. This is the gigantic elephant in the room: panto has lost the plot. 

If it is to stand any chance of redemption, we must first understand two things: how did this happen and why? 

Damning Evidence 

If there’s one thing panto-people are good at, it’s singing their industry’s praises. You can barely skulk round a theatre in December without hearing someone Trot (sic) off a verse of “Panto is a great British Christmas tradition. It pays for the rest of the theatre’s annual programme” followed by a few rousing choruses of “Hallelujah! Panto is a child’s first experience of theatre.” 

A traditional, first experience of live theatre

 Some of the most evangelical proselytisers may end up as unwitting victims of their own boosterism. I have often been told that pantomime is the most popular form of theatre in Britain. (For the record: it’s not. It’s fifth. Comedies, musicals and kids shows all draw bigger crowds, and top-of-the-list Drama attracts more than twice as many audience members annually.) 

Every year, somewhere between 11-13% of the UK population watch at least one panto. Across the country, that adds up to millions, but the corollary of this is the fact that the vast, vast majority of people who live in the UK don’t watch a panto and have no plans to start any time soon. 

I talk to lots of people about panto, including lots of people outside the rarefied circles of pantomime-devotees. From members of the general population, of course I hear a range of responses, but the response I hear most frequently is “I don’t like panto.” 

You can try to explain how your shows are different until you go blue in the face but, most times, remonstrations fall on deaf ears. Panto-refuseniks are often as dogged in their recalcitrance as fanatics are with their praise. Most punters don’t need to get their fingers burnt too many times before they shy away from the fire. 

It’s hard not to sympathise. There are a lot terrible pantos out there, I’ve watched them. Chances are, if you watch enough pantos, you too will start to question whether you really like them or not. 

So what’s going wrong and how has it happened? 

The first thing to realise is that the label “panto” is attributed fairly liberally to a fairly wide range of show styles. You’d have a very different audience experience watching the Rock and Roll panto in Mold than you would watching the circus panto at the Blackpool Tower. 

Variety acts, celebrity names, production values, actor-musicians, comedy, plot, audience participation - opinions on what makes a good panto good are as diverse as the genre itself. There’s no accounting for taste. 

But once again, it bears repeating, only: 11-13% of people are satisfied enough with the current offer to come back year on year. These people aren’t the reason panto isn’t more popular, they’re the reason it isn’t already dead. More than half of the UK theatre-going population won’t go and see a pantomime. There are millions of people buying tickets for plays who love musical theatre, who do not like pantomime.  If we are to make panto better, we must understand why and improve our offer. 

The Difference between Pantos and Plays 

Ask the man on the street what a pantomime is, he’ll probably describe it as some form of play. Indeed, from the perspective of an audience member, going to their local theatre to watch a play feels very similar to watching the pantomime. You use the same website to buy your ticket, you sit in the same auditorium, buy the same ice-cream, watch actors perform on the very same stage. Yet, the similarity of consumer experience belies crucial fundamental differences between the two. 

Besides pantomime and musical theatre, very few “straight plays” command enough of an audience to make their production commercially viable. The continued success of the UK theatre industry is predicated on the vast central subsidy, primarily through Arts Council England (ACE). ACE funds theatres, artists, and artistic projects to the tune of tens of millions of pounds a year.  These funds pay the wages of full time and freelance staff, without whom, most theatres would not be able to function. This is evidenced by the recent reallocation of ACE funding that precipitated the failure of the Oldham Coliseum.

The recently defunct Oldham Coliseum
Photo by Dancewear Central

 New plays are made when producing theatres commission playwrights. Playwrights typically work as freelance artists, building a reputation based on the quality of their portfolio of work and reviews from their previous shows. It is common for professional playwrights to have some form of professional training. This might be from an HE establishment (e.g. RADA), a professional course (e.g. Royal Court Young Writer’s Scheme) or through work placement at a partner organisation. But even highly skilled playwrights with excellent portfolios may struggle to work continuously. Competition for commissions is high. 

Once commissioned to write a play, the playwright will communicate with and be informed by a representative of the theatre (usually a director or dramaturg). These interactions might be fairly light touch (e.g bouncing ideas back and forth over email); or more formal and collaborative (table reads, feedback, rewrites etc). 

Every day, up and down the country, playwrights and theatres are engaging in processes with the end goal of realising a written script as live entertainment. 

However, this is only sometimes true when it comes to pantomimes. 

Pantomimes are commercial theatre. In many cases, individuals who put on pantomimes do so at their own expense in the hope of making a profit. In the pursuit of profit, producers may seek to economise, and one way of doing this is to cut out the playwright and save yourself paying for performance rights. 

How can you make a panto if you cut out the playwright? 

There are several ways: you can write it yourself, or you can mush together bits of scripts you already have, you can get the actors to devise something, or any combination of these. It’s not uncommon for day 1 of a panto rehearsal to include the director going through what’s turned up from the hire company and working out what they want to do with it. Nor is it uncommon for the SM to spend the two weeks of rehearsal furiously making props in the wings for “bits” that the actors have thought up during rehearsal. 

Can you gather a company of actors and devise a great show? Of course! (Kneehigh, anyone?!) Do there exist theatre producers who can also write a great show? History is littered with examples (William Something-spear comes to mind). Is that what is happening in most pantomimes? Maybe 11-13% of them? 

 

10 COMMON PANTO CRIMES AGAINST GOOD WRITING 

• The ugly sisters choose a boyfriend and never reference them again.
• Characters turn up in new locations for no discernible reason.
• Cut and paste last year’s stock characters, just change the name.
• Songs with irrelevant lyrics, sung for no reason.
• Divorcing the comic trio entirely from the plot.
• Get kids to shout out if anyone goes near the present. Present is never opened and is removed in the interval set change.
• Writing in "funny jokes", instead of funny scenes.
• Start off by putting in 12 days of Christmas, ghost gag, Two Ronnies, Chocolate bars in a shopping cart, Slosh scene, kiss on the wall sketch, fall over pull down the curtain bit, variety act. Squeeze the plot into 10 one minute scene changes infront of the show cloth.
• Villains are evil for no reason. Then they magically become good.
• Completely omit any sense of jeopardy. No action has any purpose. Nobody faces any consequences. 

At the very minimum can we all make a pact to eradicate these 10 panto crimes? 

 

Doing Something Better 

So, you’re going to make better panto, what should you do? 

If you’re a venue: hire a playwright. 

If you’re writing a panto, invest in your skills. If you’re new to writing, get some professional training. Join a writer’s group. Read some books about dramaturgy. I don’t think anybody should write a play without first reading David Ball’s extraordinarily pithy dramaturgical how-to guide, Backwards and Forwards: A technical manual for Reading Plays. Also, I’d like to make a big shout out to Paul Sirret for his excellent book The Playwright’s Manifesto published last year. 

I work on panto scripts the same as I do on “serious plays”. There are as many ways to approach writing as there are playwrights, but here are the four steps I take on my way to getting words on paper.

 1. World Building. 

Where are we? How does the world work? What are the prevailing forces that govern the way that the story unfolds? 

e.g. Our Sleeping Beauty (2019) takes place in a palace where royalty are surrounded by wealth. It’s natural to interrogate how this affects the people that live there. Are they callous and jaded? Pompous and out of touch? Profligate? Avaricious? Spoiled? The flip side of money being no object: everything is affordable, but nothing is valued. 

Unimaginable wealth and the people it breeds
Sleeping Beauty, Market Drayton 2019. The Big Tiny (photo by Howard Barlow)

 

2. Develop the characters. 

Who does the world affect most? Or in a peculiar way? What makes them tick? How do they relate to each other? What challenges could they face? How will their actions affect their circumstance and vise versa? 

e.g. In our recent Aladdin (2022) the action is centred around the Twankey’s squalid favela. The city is constrained by vast inpenetrable walls, fencing the characters in, and keeping the real world out. I developed characters that I could use to explore this world and interrogate the different ways people are shaped by their geography. Jasmine wants to escape from her family, Aladdin wishes to go back home. Widow Twankey refuses to leave her shanty, the genie has a round the world plane ticket but is bound to the lamp. Wishee-Washee collects holiday brochures he can’t read and fantasises about going on holiday while jet setting Abanazar traverses the world by plane, by boat, by camel and doesn’t think anything of it. 

Characters stories are shaped by their circumstances
Aladdin, Saddleworth 2022. The Big Tiny (Photo by Howard Barlow)

 

3. Structure the plot. 

Give every character an arc: a problem to deal with, a test they must face, an opportunity to grow and develop. Know where all the pivotal moments will come, and put them in an order that leads the audience on an emotional journey. 

e.g. In Robin Hood (2021) I wrote an arc for Will Scarlett in which he fixes a talent show to win a box of chocolates. In Act 1, we see Will practise, putting up posters, preparing his costume, as well as jealously guarding the chocolates from the peckish merry men. All this means that by the time we get to the contest in Act 2, the audience are fully invested in Will’s success, sharing his elation as he reads out first place, and his devastation when the sheriff steals the chocolates. 

Will Scarlett's very clear narrative arc
Robin Hood, Huddersfield 2021. The Big Tiny

 

4. (ONLY NOW!) – Write in the words.  

Let the humour and pathos come out of the characters. 3-Dimensional characters speak for themselves. Make sure you give each individual their own sound. Pay attention to rhythms, cadence, pause and word choice. E.g. Stock characters always sound the same. Well developed characters have a voice that is rooted firmly in their world. Notice how different these three fairies sound:

Cupid:               "Gosh, what an absolutely gorgeous bunch of people you are.   You are!  Have a look around.  Absolutely fabulous.  Smashing.  Look at your outfit!  Gorgeous.  And yours.  Loving your hair.  Yeah, it’s fab.  And all the gents, you’re all gorgeous as well.  I mean, phwaor, totally stunning."

From Rumpelstiltskin 2023

 

Bree-Anne:      Alright Huddersfield, ‘ow do?
Fairy Bree-Anne welcomes you
Come one and all souls good and honest
Take refuge here in Sherwood Forest

How you doing?  You alright?

‘ere, this forest’s night life’s banging
Since the merry men’s been ‘anging
Round about with Robin Hood,
It’s done Nottin’ham t’world o’ good.                    

 From Robin Hood 2021

 

Mary:   Huzzah!  Hip, hip hooray!  Yippee! 
It’s not a shooting star, it’s me! 
Fairy Mary is my name 
I heard a wish and whoosh, I came 

Snatching up my magic wand 
I’ve left my home in clouds beyond 
Flitting through existences 
In my fairy wings from Marks and Spencer’s                    

 From Jack and the Beanstalk 2019

A New Era

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.  The first year of our Saddleworth panto, we attracted just under 10% of the local population.  We struggled to sell the school shows, and sales were thin on the ground until after we opened... a case of potential audience members keeping their powder dry.

Every year we have come back with a story driven, well-written play.  Yes, it's a panto, it has a dame speech, a boyfriend, a ghost gag (not every year), lazzi, preposterous costumes, songs... but it also has character arcs, a superobjective, jeopardy, pathos and truth. 

Far from putting off the traditional panto audience, we've brought them with us.  Year on year we have grown our audience until last year we attracted 20% of the local population.  That's all the panto lovers, plus an extra seven percent of previous "refuseniks."  And the better news... sales are already up for Rumpelstiltskin 2023.

To Albert Einstein is oft attributed the quote "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." We can grow panto and reach out to a wider audience, but only if we start doing something different.

It's time to start writing a new future for our industry.  The future's bright.  The future's panto.