panto.qxp_Layout 1 26/11/2021 17:27 Page 1
ARTS THEATRE CITY || INTERIORS
Family-friendly morality tales
Emma Clegg considers pantomime’s characters, wonders why it is such a festive family addiction, and asks panto veteran Jon Monie how it has changed over the years and whether it’s the villains that are the most crucial factor Dick Whittington and Robin Hood. After 1843, before which the use of spoken word was restricted, the format developed again, using witty puns, word play and audience participation, along with fairy-tale characters, magical animals, principal boys and pantomime dames. Other stories derived from European, Middle Eastern and Asian folk tales and legends – Goldilocks, Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin and Cinderella all have their origins here. Then in the 1860s Music Hall performers started to be cast in pantomimes, bringing with them a celebrity status that pulled in new audiences. That device has remained a winning one and over the years Bath has seen stars such as Jimmy Mac, Frankie Howerd, Arthur English, Jon Pertwee, Melvyn Hayes, Eric Sykes, Derek Nimmo, Terry Scott, June Whitfield, and Danny La Rue treading the boards. Panto veteran Jon Monie is appearing in the Bath Theatre Royal pantomime for the 19th time this year as Buttons in Cinderella
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You need to see the central character having to wrestle between good and bad and make the right choices
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he pantomime is a timeless family tradition. Whether it’s Peter Pan, Cinderella or Aladdin, you know you will encounter the flamboyant cross-dressing dame, the innocent povertystricken girl, the scowling villain, the handsome prince, and the sparkling fairy godmother in some narrative form, and if you’re lucky the pantomime horse or cow. They are familiar characters and stories; there are no surprises, just an explosive, entertaining over-the-top performance that feels part of a long-established canon. This theatrical form has, however, gone on a journey – the roots of pantomime lie in a style of classical theatre called Commedia Dell ‘Arte, popular in Italy throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, where characters appeared, representing recognisable social stereotypes, such as the clown, the servant, and the lovers. The troupes would typically perform – including dance, music, tumbling and acrobatics – in a town’s main square or at court and would play out conventional plot lines, with much of it was improvised so that the actors could make the drama colourful with relevant local news or scandals. By the early 18th century, Commedia characters including Harlequin, Scaramouche, Pantaloon, Pierrot, Punch and Columbine began to appear on the London stage, with performances set to music. Under the direction of actor manager David Garrick (1717–1779) Harlequin started to speak, and had new stories written based on old English folk stories like
Mark Buffery as Ugly Sister Dilly and Jon Monie as Ugly Sister Dolly in Cinderella in 2006. Photograph by Matt Cardy
(he keeps count because of the posters going all the way up his stairs). He now writes the pantomime scripts for UK Productions who are responsible for the productions in Bath, producing completely new versions from start to finish. Jon says his mantra when writing is, “Keep it traditional, keep it within budget, and ensure there are jokes for every age group. With Cinderella I knew what set and costumes they had, so I didn’t try and rewrite the rule book, but I went for lots of new jokes and I tried to make Cinderella more feisty – I think the female principal girl can be a bit underwritten and I had a bit of fun with the prince and Dandini and introduced a few set pieces that hadn’t been done in Bath for a long time.” Some pantomimes have lost their relevance over the years and others have been newly introduced. Jon explains, “There are a small core of titles which are eternally popular, and others fall by the wayside. So some titles such as Mother Goose, Babes in the Wood or Robinson Crusoe have fallen out of favour, because if children don’t know the stories they don’t want to go and see them. So Beauty and the Beast has now become really popular as a pantomime but that’s the Disney effect. The story goes back to the 1700s but it was only when Disney made it an animated film that it became well known. So there is an increase in stories like The Little Mermaid, Shrek or Frozen, which seem to be pushing out some of the more traditional ones.” So this brings things a bit more up to date, but what is it about the traditional pantomime that has seen it survive into our modern era, where it’s phones and tech and AI, rather than fairy godmothers and evil pirates, that dominate our culture? The stars and the characters are key, but it is the driving moral of the stories that we love, following a simple narrative arc with a calm beginning, a middle where tension, conflict and the momentum of the story build to a peak, and the finale where the conflict is resolved. This is where the forces of good and evil come into play. The narrative of any story is about change and transformation and pantomime does it quite literally in black and white. In Jon Monie’s words, “I think the strongest pantomime stories are those where the central character goes on an emotional journey, and has some moment of inner revelation.” It is the villain that controls this arc – the villain and the hero are foils for each other, but it’s the villain, the force of antagonism, who controls the drama. The comforting part for the audience is that the villain follows a
