As part of the Christmas festivities, my family and I went to the Hackney Empire to see the panto, which this year was Dick Whittington.
Now as part of my mongrel career, I have worked backstage at my local theatre, and one of the best shows to work on was panto. The children in the audience, and their reactions to the actors gave each performance unpredictability and even a sense of danger. I've seen kids protect the heroine by kicking the baddie in the balls (in this case, the wolf in Red Riding Hood), cry uncontrollably when told a joke by the hero, and watch their pee trickle down the raked stage into the orchestra pit. Not to mention some astonishingly blue jokes from eight-year olds.
I was mostly on follow-spot (or limelight) juggling with pink, straw and green gels for picking up the heroine, principal boy and the villain, wearing headphones and getting the cues from the stage manager. Although I left the theatre many years ago, I have very happy memories of working backstage and was therefore really looking forward to the panto at Hackney Empire. And although I'm a regular visitor at the theatre, it must be twenty years since I last saw a panto.
So while some things were the same - kids almost sick with excitement, grandparents struggling to keep control, bored-looking older siblings - there were some changes.
A preponderance of bustiers was the first thing I noticed - on all the dancers, all the actors. Had I looked, I felt sure the band would also be wearing them.
Also, we had an Asian fairy godmother, who cracked jokes in Hindi with some sections of the audience (an interesting position to be in as a white audience member) and a West Indian King Rat. The comedy was more political (well, Boris Johnson IS a godsend) and the songs a bit more hip hop than I remembered.
And none of these changes made me enjoy it any less. It was great to see panto shifting with the times, reflecting the audiences who would see it, and still eliciting the same kind of response - Oh yes, it does!
Which made me think that essentially, kids don't change all that much. They want a goodie, a baddie and some certainty about the story. And although adults can't always provide this, I did find myself wondering if we provide children with too much realism, too much subtlety, too many choices, when what makes them happy is simplicity.
