Should Panto Dames Buy their own Costumes?

"There is nothing like a Dame." (centre)
by Rogers (left) and Hammerstein (right)

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Who plays the Dame?  

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How do they play it?  

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What function does the Dame fulfil?  

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What is the relationship of the Dame with the audience?

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There are so many questions...

Of all the topics I’m thinking about as part of my research, Dame-ing* is the one that performers are most keen to speak to me about.

 

People love the Dame.  People love watching the Dame.  People love playing the Dame.  It’s surely no coincidence that of the many performer-impressarios running panto companies, the most common role that the producer plays is Dame.

 

For a start: it’s tricky.  Playing a stock character that carries so much cultural weight and is imbued with so many lifetimes of heritage is a serious undertaking.  With so much at stake (especially when you’re stumping up the capital) there is a certain conservative value in the old adage: “if you want something doing right, do it yourself.”

 

However, for some Dame-producers, there’s something more at play.  The Dame is a character that inspires people to perform.  People want to play Dame.  Some professional performers got into acting in order to play Dame.  Some professional performers only play Dame.  If you are dead-set on performing Dame, it makes good sense to set up your own pantomime!  Then, not only do you get to guarantee yourself the part you want, you get to make all the fun decisions about costume tracks, wig designs, song choices… it’s Dame heaven.

 

N.B. Even in the myriad non-professional companies, Dame is a role that carries a certain prestige and is often performed by the writer, the director, or some other community member with similar cachet.  In other companies, Dame is seen as a prize to be shared around… a reward for the performatively-minded for contributing to the community.

 

My biggest brother James playing Dame
in the greatly auspicious 2023 production of
"Harry Barber and the Four Tea Thieves"
by the Gentlemen of Moore Rugby Club.

However... when it comes to professional panto...

Dames are expensive  

 

For example. our 2023 production of Aladdin at the Met in Bury had 7 actors with a track of 25 costumes (not including the juvenile chorus). Eight of these were Dame costumes.

 

Let’s digest that for a moment.  A full third of the costumes used in the show are for one character.  (The ratio is even more skewed if you disregard the walk-down set…)

 

But numbers only tell half the story.

 

Compared to the “average” costume, Dame’s costumes are often much bigger, more elaborate and consequently more expensive.  

 

Sometimes the costume is bigger than the performer!

 

Now, I have some level of insider information on prices that I don’t intend to divulge on this blog.  It’s not that the industry has anything to hide, but it’s commercially sensitive information and some makers depend on this custom.  (Besides, people who need to know how expensive these things can get, already know…believe me!). However, I don’t think I’m going to blow anybody’s mind too much by saying that kitting someone out in 8 large, spectacular costumes with matching wigs, footwear and other accoutrements can leave a dent in even the girthiest wallet.

 

A canny investor may seek to make savings by specialising in playing one specific character.  It can be a good idea – if you get a reputation as a good Twankey, Ugly or Mother Goose (John Inman), you can circulate to a different show each year and command a good fee.  Best of all, as you’ll be performing in front of new audiences, you’ll only need to buy 9 costumes and you can wear them every year! 

 

And buying the kit is only the start of the bills.  Once you’ve got a collection of gigantic frocks and precious hard set wigs, you need somewhere to store them.  Of course, if you have a 20 bedroom mansion with several spare dressing rooms, then this needn’t cause too much of a problem, but given that you’re an actor and not a tech-mogul, you probably don’t… in which case, you better get used to seeing the name “BIG YELLOW STORAGE” on your direct debits every month.

Storage can be a real headache!

As a producer, you can ameliorate some of these costs by staging your show in a different venue next season – after all, you already have the costumes, so now you can budget the cost across two shows rather than one.  If you have a big company with lots of contracts, you might start budgeting a dozen shows or more, across the life of the costume.

 

If you haven’t got a lot of contracts, you could always try staging more pantos in the venues you have.  This is one of the reasons behind the upsurge in Easter, Summer and even Halloween pantos of late.

 

Of course, once you’ve had your hilarious big dame costume on in all the shows you can stage, your audiences have seen it – so it’s value to you plummets.   Now you have two options: you can sell it on, or find some space in your workshop and try to hire it out (HINT – why not join one of the dozens of people who have signed up to pursuedbybear.co.uk.  You can have your own shop without the cost of developing a website!).  Of all the panto costumes, dame costumes come up the most frequently on Ebay as people try to recoup some of their investment.  Here is a second hand costume starting at £300.

 

However, as a performer, your options are more limited.  You have to store the costumes until the next time you get cast in that show. (Although you could always sign up to Pursued By Bear and hire it to someone else)

 

Which is how we get to the world we now live in, in which a significant number of dedicated performers who play dame have large collections of costumes and wigs locked up in storage, waiting for Christmas.  A stranded asset.  And what do you do with assets?  Capitalise on them.

The Eureka Moment!

 

At some point in distant history, an enterprising performer, in order to get one up on the competition,  sidled up to a producer at the end of their auditions, and said “Of course, I can provide my own costumes!”

 

And that producer thought ‘Kerching!’

 

All those costs, all that upkeep, all those ongoing expenses – it was now on somebody elses shoulders.

 

All things being equal, why wouldn’t you employ someone who brings their own costumes?

 

Well, a good idea is a good idea.  Which is why it was at this very moment, that something which nobody foresaw (nor no-doubt wanted) began.  The great dame-costume-arms-race.

 

If you are losing out on roles to people who provide their own costumes, you might start thinking “I’d better keep up.”  Soon there are so many performers providing their own costumes that some producers only cast performers who costume themselves, foregoing the financial and logistical burden altogether.

 

Dames who stick with the same company now need to costume themselves for different panto titles.  It’s not good enough to have a few good workers, you need something Chinese for Aladdin, something bucolic for Jack, something French for Beauty and the Beast – or maybe even two of everything if you’re sometimes an Ugly Sister.

 

Every Dick needs a Sarah!

You can do your best to economise.  The more generic the costume is in style and material, the more titles you can wear it for.  But the pressure to have “showstoppers” is enormous, and even basic workers aren’t cheap.  Several self-costuming dames I have spoken to have bemoaned the very high costs they bear – often above and beyond what they can recoup through “rental” clauses in their contracts (in which a producer offers to pay a flat fee in addition to the performance fee).

 

Some performers love dame-ing so much they delight in buying new frocks and commissioning wigs… in which case it’s less of a problem.  But some performers, in order to keep up, have got themselves into a quag from which it is not always easy to escape.

 

And it’s not just performers that suffer.

 

When you’re writing a script, you craft a world into which you place your characters.  Imagine you have a hilarious idea for a plot line in which Mother Goose is going to a Casino dressed as a roulette table.  You can picture the headlines now “Inspired roulette-table-dress steals the show at the Huddersfield working men’s club” The Guardian, “***** Dame takes hilarious costume out for a spin” Panto magazine, “All bets are off with this years jaw-dropping dame costumes at Felixstowe Independent Methodist Hall” British Theatre Guide.  Now all you have to do is find a dame with a roulette dress.

 

Good luck!

 

When the costumes come with performer, you have to pick from their collection - if their collection doesn't have a roulette dress... you get what you get.  So what happens?  Forget your ideas.  Write something generic so what the costume doesn’t matter and bodge together some references to it during rehearsals.  Good performers can make anything work… they’ll probably make something funny! (If it’s their costume, they may already arrive with some lines).  But no matter how well it turns out on the night, you have sacrificed authorial control.

 

SO, in answer to the question “should dames buy their own costumes?”  It depends.  If you love buying dresses and wigs and curating a costume collection – OF COURSE!  Life is short, make yourself happy.  But you shouldn’t have to.

 

The question itself is a bum steer. The real focus should be on the producer… 

 

“Should you be producing shows if they rely on performers to costume themselves.”  To this question, my answer is decidedly, emphatically “no.”