Theatre
Midnight for panto
Kenneth Hurren1
The most agitating topic of discussion around the theatre this week — and I hesitate to trouble you with it — seems to be whether a Cockney girl named Twiggy, apparently made out of pipe cleaners, or a Cockney lad named Tommy Steele, mostly made out of teeth, is the more endearing. Even the pixie in me, from whom I always take an opinion at this season, has hardly a word to say against either of them, and if I give the nod to Twiggy, it is probably, mostly because she's a girl, but partly because of the show she is in, which is Cinderella, a pantomime at the London Casino. Tommy Steele is at the London Palladium in Hans Andersen (the 'Christian' has been dropped, doubtless a sign of our pagan times), which is also a pantomime, though masquerading as simply 'a musical'.
I'm not sure why, precisely, there is this shyness about describing Hans Andersen as a pantomime — its story, though ostensibly biographical, is as mythological as Jack and the Beanstalk, and the level of the scriptwriting is unlikely to strike the average eight-year-old as over-ambitious—but it is conceivably not unconnected with the fact that the word will not look too appealing on the bills come July, when it will probably still be running. On the other hand it may simply be that the shrewd showmen operating at the Palladium — a house where they have an unerring finger for the public pulse — have decided that 'pantomime' is no longer a good word for the bills at any time. I don't know how things are going at the pantomime boxoffice in your neck of the woods, but in London a case could be made out for the soundness of this judgement.
I happened to see these two shows on the second night of each, and the contrast in attendances was too striking to be ignored: the Palladium was packed, the Casino (a theatre of considerably smaller capacity) cannot have been more than three-quarters full, yet I cannot think there can be any great difference in the appeal of the subjects or the people appearing in them. If anything, taking our two endearing Cockneys as being roughly equally attractive, the names in the cast of Cinderella (Harry H. Corbett, Wilfrid Brambell, Nicky Henson, Roy Kinnear, Joyce Grant, Lenny the Lion) would seem to me likelier to stimulate trade than those of Hans Andersen (Milo O'Shea, Bob Todd, Lila Kaye, Willoughby Goddard, Colette Gleeson); and by any standards I may have with which to judge these annual whimsicalities, taking also into account the, responses of the tots in nearby pews, awash in orange squash and melting chocolate creams, it is also, on the whole, more fun. I can only conclude, therefore, that pantomime — now that even childhood has lost the credulity of innocence — is not hooking them the way it used to, and we may well be hearing its swan-song. It is fair to say, though, if I have not sufficiently indicated it already, that it could not be more agreeably sung than in this Cinderella, staged with rare glitter and, colour and songs of amiable inappropriateness (including, inscrutably, a rousing tribute to Australia). All the performers throw themselves vivaciously into the spirit of the enterprise; Corbett (son of Steptoe) reveals an hitherto unsuspected skill as a juggler; and Twiggy, as the girl with the unique shoe-size, wins, as they say, all hearts, despite the character's predilection for the nobility. As for Hans Andersen, it follows the formula that has had the coach-parties lining up in Argyle Street immemorially, and even when the word gets round that it's a pantomime after. all, its sumptuous scenic embellishments and the winning exuberance of Tommy Steele will keep it going.
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