Pantomime

Last week my local writers group held an evening of readings on a holiday/winter theme. Hearing some of the stories that people chose to recount brought back a few of my own childhood memories.

When I was young, at this time of year we would always go to a pantomime.

As far as I know, this is a mostly British phenomenon. Something that maybe Aussies and New Zealanders might have some knowledge of, but which utterly baffles North Americans.

Pantomime is rife with traditions, usually based on a folk tale such as Puss in Boots or Jack and the Beanstalk. The leading man is played by a woman, and there’s always the comical pantomime dame played by a man, plus the mandatory pantomime horse or cow. Songs and slapstick comedy are the order of the day, along with a liberal sprinkling of topical jokes based on the week’s headlines that, at that age, went completely over my head.

Major theaters in Britain make a big production of the Christmas pantomime, starring leading celebrities of TV and stage. But the fond memories I have are of smaller affairs often put on by church groups or small groups of local amateurs. These were always held in wooden-floored church halls.
(I’ve since concluded that parish architects must have based those halls on the dimensions of a badminton court, because they all had the court markings laid out on the floor in fraying colored tape)

Winter in Guernsey is no wonderland. Leaden skies and heavy, cold drops driven by the wind whistling off the Atlantic. We would arrive, bundled up against the damp chill, and line up to step through the doors. A volunteer seated behind a card table would check tickets and admit us to the muggy warmth beyond.

Rows of folding wooden chairs awaited us, facing the tiny raised stage at one end of the hall. The open-beamed roof sported a hissing row of rectangular gas heaters down each side, the sullen glow from their ceramic mantles casting a pink-orange light into the rafters and comforting warmth below.

We’d settle in, oblivious to the hard and rickety seats, and the curtains would part to reveal hand-painted canvas backdrops.
(In later years, I helped out one year painting scenery, standing on stepladders and decorators trestles to paint canvases hung from the ceiling of a garage)
And a raucous presentation would ensue, replete with audience participation. Cries of “behind you” when the villain sneaks up from the back of the stage, and the inevitable back-and-forth argument at some point with the cast - “Oh yes it is!” “Oh no it isn’t!” shouted with glee.

Then there was the grand finale, where the villain would be thwarted and the poverty-stricken leading character would turn out to be some long lost prince, and everyone would live happily ever after.