I had an informal meeting today with my friend Tara Maguire, who runs a talent and casting agency in Liverpool. She’s got the idea of putting on a Liverpool-based pantomime at Christmas and thinks I should write it. I’m no fan of panto, indeed Hell might be one long pantomime (“It’s cold in here isn’t it kids?� “Oh no it’s not! My face is burning off�), but that would at least allow me to create a pantomime that I would like to go and see. A sort of anti-panto. Tara wants it to have a jokey Liverpool theme and setting (i.e. a tanning salon) and the idea does rather appeal.
She’s quite set on the Cinderella story (so it might be called Sunderella for example) and instead of Cinderella being a pretty, gentle soul, she’d be a brassy Scouse scally. The ugly sisters would be worse. Prince Charming would probably be a footballer.
The problem I have is that I don’t really know much about pantomimes, having avoided them every year, but I suppose I could learn the rules. If you’re from outside the UK, and don’t know what a pantomime is, here’s the basic premise.
They are generally on at Christmas time and always based around an alarmingly few stories, Aladdin, Dick Whittington, Cinderella, Snow White being the main culprits. A girl will always play a boy, and vice versa. They’re meant to be for children but always have lots of rude jokes in that only adults will understand, it’s all rather camp and overacted, and there’s a lot of audience participation. One of the main rules is whenever anyone says “Oh yes it is!� the audience have to bellow back “Oh no it’s not!�. The same for “Oh yes I did.�
Um, what else? Well there has to be a dame, and this will be an older man dressed up as a big fat woman.
I think describing the concept of pantomime to anyone from China might be the hardest thing in the world. They don’t really… they’re incomparable to anything else.
So I might have a go at putting a few ideas together. The thing is that Scousers are notoriously bad at laughing at themselves sometimes and it would be easy to look like a non-Liverpudlian writer is making fun, thus incurring the wrath of the audience. But I’m sure it’s a possible project.
Tara herself has been in a pantomime a couple of years ago because she used to present a kids TV show called All Or Nothing. This resulted in her being incredibly famous to everyone under the age of ten, which is a strange position to be in. She ‘d get mobbed if a coach load of children disembarked anywhere nearby.
She’ll sort out the cast for this one, if indeed it happens, and then there’s the venue to think about, etc. I’m sure The Royal Court would be up for it. Perhaps if it’s successful I’ll be asked to write more and would have the odd job of being a professional pantomime writer, which must be a first class ticket to a mental asylum. I wonder if you’d become a sort of mad parody of yourself, just shrieking about the place in the campest manner possible, finding it impossible to turn down any opportunity for pun or innuendo? God, what a hideous thought.
If it goes ahead I’ll expect you all to come and watch it and we’ll meet afterwards for a drink. “That was alright, wasn’t it?� I’ll say. “Oh no it wasn’t!� you’ll reply. “You’ve written a dire parody of a cherished tradition.�
“Oh no I haven’t!�
“Oh yes you have!�
And so on into infinity.
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