Pantomime ( aka Panto)


I went to the panto last night.
Now Panto in Rhyl wouldn't be my first choice given my sensitive snobby ways but all turned out pretty well despite a half filled auditorium .
Now I am aware that many of my followers wouldn't really have a " scooby doo" of what constitutes an average British panto....and so here are a few pointers

Think of a child's fairy story performed on stage with a backdrop of gaudy, cartoon sets and lavish over the top costumes.
Add to the mix, a few non related pop songs sung by with gusto by the twenty something principle boy or girl, a backing dance troupe of five or six , slightly uncoordinated teenage dancers in their first show and hordes of tiny tots from the local dance school who are there to make up the numbers.
Sweetening the menu can be a minor soap opera celebrity almost on their uppers who usually plays the villain , a couple of middle aged male comics, one usually dressed as a dame with massive tits and a potty mouth who can engage the predominately kiddie audience with enough silliness which smokescreens a whole lot of double entendres loved by the adults.
Finally, the children are encouraged to scream and shout at the action, slapstick comedy, and asides where sweets are thrown into the auditorium or the old water pistols are brought into play.
sophisticated, it isn't, but professional it certainly is and Aladdin last night at Rhyl's Pavilion was a typical example of of the craft which was as entertaining as it was colourful.
I didn't want to go
I'm still dreadfully antisocial at times and very low in family company
But the silliness, of it all perked the old spirits up.

Off to work tonight
Hey ho


36 comments:

  1. At work, somebody will ask - Where's Nurse Gray?
    Then a reply will be voiced in unison - "He's behind yer!"

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  2. Liked hearing that “going” . . .
    “perked the old spirits up!”

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  3. Sounds horrid but happy you are engaging social situations and not staying at home. One day at a time.

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  4. That's good John, you can't help but laugh at silliness (and blokes dressed as dames with big tits).

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  5. I saw Wayne Sleep as the Panto Dame once, Blimming marvelous. Our village puts on a good show too.

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  6. \keep topping the spirits up John both human and from the bottle when necessary - you're getting there. May 2019 be a much better year for you. xx

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  7. I went to the Geneva Amateur Operatic Society panto of the Little Mermaid just before Christmas. I haven't been for years as my kids are grown up but it was very well done (they aren't always) and I really enjoyed it. Hearing the kids giggle is a treat!

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  8. Barbara Anne3:05 pm

    I've never heard of Panto or seen a performance. Sound a bit like the insanity of Fawlty Towels but much more colorful. Live and learn!

    Laughter is the best medicine. :)

    Hope your shift tonight is pleasant and may every patient sleep well all night long.

    Hugs!

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  9. I adore a good panto; you must think me awfully common.

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  10. Oh no you're not, Oh yes you are glad you went ! Nothing like a good panto to cheer you up.

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  11. I would love to take a car full of neighborhood kids to a panto. I wonder if anything like that is around. I must check.

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  12. This sounds like fun! I can imagine the kids having a blast.

    XoXo

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  13. Panto is wasted on children. I love it!

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  14. I've never heard of it before but it sounds like an eyeful.

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  15. Glad you went. It does sound like a lot of foolish fun. I'd like to go to one.

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  16. If the words pantomime and me (dad/grandad) are ever mentioned, the blood drains from me. Having said that, if you can get a bit tipsy beforehand, then they are great fun.

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  17. Panto can be fun being in the audience but i advise taking a hip flask with you then you really enjoy it.

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  18. Don't forget the pantomime horse and the audience sing-along. A great British institution, and as you say a lifeline for penniless washed-up actors.

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  19. This is a great and helpful explanation of panto, for this California gal. I've been wondering what it is and now I know. Sounds crazy. I have watched Eastenders for decades (go ahead and laugh) and sometimes a EE star is not on the show for a while and is in a panto.

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  20. Panto is not big in Canada, but every year there seems to be a small production somewhere or another. One is being staged here this year in the small theatre at Fort Edmonton Park.

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  21. I am glad you went, and that it perked you up. And for the explanation. I had (of course) heard of panto, but never seen it.

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  22. Thanks for the explanation. It sounds like fun and if it perked you up it's a great thing!

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  23. It sounds like a bit of a burlesque show. Glad it lifted you.

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  24. Have never heard of panto, but thanks for the introduction. Don't think we have anything that quite fits that description in the northeastern US! I find myself using the dictionary often when reading blogs from the British Isles - our English sure is different!

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  25. Heard of it, never seen it, sounds like fun. Keep expanding your horizons,

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  26. Oh, yes, I know of this panto, and it's the only glitch in my mind meld with classic British humor. I don't get it, not one bit. Maybe because it's the one area of British pop culture where there is not a trace of irony?

    But yes, it's good that you went to where your roots are, dear John,to recreate the bits and pieces of your Self that you need to reclaim. You need to have sentimental experiences that connect you to a long-ago "you", to re-claim the individual you were before you were paired...and all of us out here in the ether know that 2019 will be the year that you recover your "self" and all the kindness and love that you have put out there in the world.

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  27. My English mother used to take us to pantos as children. Here in Australia they are not a Christmas tradition. However, two years ago I privileged to see a panto in London after Christmas. It was tremendous fun and lives on in my memory as one of my highlights of my all too brief stay in England.

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  28. I think you have to come from the UK to enjoy a panto. Glad you made the effort and it paid off.

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  29. My one regret from my time living in England is that I never got to the panto.

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  30. I hope you will continue to resist the urge to become a hermit, John! Soon you will find your way. Glad that the panto brought light hearted laughter to your day.

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  31. The last time I went to a Panto I was about nine. I absolutely hated it with all of the passion a 9 year old could muster. I never understood it; all that yelling he's behind you and the fake turning round and not "seeing him".

    However, glad it warmed your cockles and gave you a lift.. that is what is required at this time of year.

    Jo in Auckland

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  32. Sounds like fun. I don't think I have ever gone to a pant. So glad you went it is no good sitting in a corner and sucking your thumb.

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  33. We get the National Theatre Live in HD here (upstate NY), Bolshoi ballet also in HD, Plus Metropolitan Opera, but for years what I've really wanted to see was a Panto (I read lots of English cozy mysteries where they are described lovingly but incompletely). Thanks for a little more info to add to my mental image.
    Glad it did its job for you.

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  34. They just don't have Panto's in Australia anymore .... I am your age and I went to them when I was little .... strange but I bet they would go down so well !!!

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  35. We didn't go to the panto this year, we decided to go and see the new Mary Poppins Returns film instead.

    The best panto we went to at Venue Cymru had Gareth Thomas playing a very gay genie. It was the year he came out and the double entendres were thick and fast. It was lovely to see him relaxed and feeling safe, really camping it up. The few people that tried to sneak photos of him on stage were asked politely but very firmly to delete them and they did 🙂

    It was good, clean but risque fun ... just what a panto should be.

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  36. They used to put them on over the holidays and broadcast them New Year's Day when I was a teenager. I think they were good family outings. I loved the way the villains would taunt the little kids into a frenzy of booing.

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