Panto wins the golden goose for UK theatre
Published: December 9 2010 23:41 | Last updated: December 9 2010 23:41
By Emma Jacobs
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| Oh yes it is! Pamela Anderson in ‘Aladdin’, this year being staged in Liverpool |
South London might be a bit chillier than Malibu but it appears to hold a certain allure for former stars of the 1990s television series Baywatch . David Hasselhoff, the 58-year-old who played lifeguard Mitch Buchannon, is appearing as Captain Hook in Peter Pan, this year’s pantomime at New Wimbledon Theatre.
Last year, the theatre drew Pamela Anderson, who wore a red swimsuit to play the Genie in Aladdin, a production that has moved this year to Liverpool’s Empire Theatre, taking Anderson with it.
Pantomimes – recastings of old children’s stories with puns, audience participation, singalongs and cross-dressing – are a long-standing staple of the British Christmas season. Appealing to everyone from grandparents to toddlers with a mix of over-the-top silliness, innuendo and topical references, they are also vitally lucrative for the country’s small and provincial theatres.
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Kevin Wood, chief executive of First Family Entertainment, the production company behind Wimbledon’s Peter Pan and Liverpool’s Aladdin, among 10 others, says: “Panto is massively important for regional theatres. It means they can put on events, like contemporary dance, that wouldn’t make money.” He declines to reveal how much he pays big stars, but says “it’s hundreds of thousands of pounds”.
Susie McKenna, who has staged an independent pantomime at the Hackney Empire in east London for 12 years, including this year’s Jack and the Beanstalk, says cuts in arts funding by the coalition government, make panto even more important: “We have to count every penny.” It is a point made in the show, when the “dame” laments the cuts by the “demolition government”. By the time the Olympics arrive in 2012, he sighs, it will be reduced to a few “pit bull races on Hackney Downs”.
Yet, unlike bigger productions, Ms McKenna says, Hackney needs to ensure tickets remain affordable to locals. Tickets go for as little as £1.50 ($2.36) and the most expensive is £24.50. This means that wages are kept low, as she quips: “People don’t work for us for the money.”
Nonetheless, Hackney is lucky that some of the actors who have appeared at the theatre for a long time have become famous, and so attract audiences from outside the locality.
Nick Thomas, chairman of Qdos Entertainment Group, which stages 22 pantomimes in Britain, says big production companies have greater buying power for top TV talent, such as John Barrowman, star of Torchwood, who has done panto for five years and has just signed on for another five.
On show
Big companies are also more efficient because they exploit economies of scale. Family First Entertainment works on a five-year cycle – the Peter Pan production at Wimbledon this year will return to the theatre five years later. “It means we can spread overheads,” says Mr Wood, whose company receives sponsorship from Robinsons, the soft drinks maker. “Costumes, props and scripts will be recycled. The script is tweaked in terms of topical references, but Cinderella always goes to the ball.”
Is panto merely a refuge for washed-up celebrities? “Actors have to be good,” says Mr Thomas. “You need to get people buying tickets this year for next year. Cash flow is important for local theatres.”
Two days after Newcastle’s panto opened, he says, it had already taken “a quarter of a million pounds in tickets for 2011’s production”. He cites the effect of Dynasty star Joan Collins, who is making her debut at the age of 77: “She wouldn’t have been hired if she wasn’t right for the show.” And she earns her money: “She is doing everything but flying in on a wire.”
Mr Wood was thrilled when Shakespearean actor Sir Ian McKellen donned a floral dress in 2004 to play Widow Twanky at the Old Vic’s Aladdin in London. Rather than upstage provincial theatres, the upscale production increased Mr Wood’s bargaining power. “After McKellen, no actor could tell me panto was beneath them,” he says.
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