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Interviews
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From Boos to Boobs: "A bloke in a dress" Simon Sladen talks to Damian Williams about playing Dame. Comedy actor and pantomime Dame Damian Williams should come with a health warning. Regardless of what show he's in, whether in trousers or skirts, he has audiences rolling in the aisles and gasping for breath as they laugh uncontrollably at his comic antics, perfect timing, great wit and warmth. A pantomime and farce stalwart, I caught up with him at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon whilst on tour with Not Now Darling. A successful and talented performer, it is somewhat a surprise when Williams tells me he had no formal training. "I didn't go to drama school," he says. "I met a guy called Alexander Bridge who used to play Dame. I did a summer school thing of Bugsy Malone when I was about 15 and he said to me, 'Look, when you leave school, why don't you come and join my theatre company?' and that's what I did. I joined his theatre company and did a lot of backstage work, bit parts, and I learnt by watching people - that's how I did it, which is unheard of now, you can't do that anymore." Learning by doing and observation is one of Williams' theatrical maxims and he is keen to express how much the masters of old-school comedy have also helped shape and influence his performance. "I grew up watching Tommy Cooper, Morecambe and Wise and all those people. That's the style I like." Comedy runs through his veins. Many of the comics Williams cites enjoyed long and successful careers in pantomime, but how did Williams' own Pantoland adventure begin? "I started with Villains," he explains. "I played Villain for years and years. One year Bruce [James, producer] said 'Do you fancy playing Dame?' when he took over at the Thameside Theatre, Grays. I said, "Well, I've never given it a go', so I did." Williams' pre-Dame career as Villain saw him appearing in some of the country's biggest theatres with many of the UK's leading stars of the day. "I learnt a lot from Barbara Windsor," he tells me during their run of Aladdin at the Gordon Craig Theatre in 1993. "I played Abanazar to her Aladdin before she did EastEnders. She taught me a lot about panto, about getting on with it, about what you do" and now Williams is helping keep the genre alive by passing this knowledge down to the next generation of pantomime performers. From boos to boobs, the transformation from Villain to Dame is quite rare, with most performers entering the Damehood by way of the Comic. So what is Williams' Dame like? "The Dame I play, I'm sort of on the audience's side," he explains - the complete opposite of Villain. Williams continues: "I'm on their side, so I'm part of the audience, narrating back to them. I think I've been influenced by a lot of old comedians. I was aware of the Terry Scotts and the George Laceys. I loved people like Billy Dainty. And I used to watch videos of them. John Inman, when he was in his heyday, he was brilliant." Williams cites a vast number of Dames, each with their own unique interpretation of the role, from Dan Leno to Danny La Rue. But where does Williams place himself in this Dame-ographic of practitioners? "Dame has got to be a man in a dress," he says seriously. "Ugly Sisters, fair enough, because you can get away with the drag element of it, but I think when you're a Dame, you're a bloke in a dress and that's what it always was. And that's your first laugh, isn't it? You come on and you're obviously a bloke. I think it's getting confusing these days because with a lot of the new breed of Dames, you're not sure whether they are a man because it is all about the legs and lip gloss." 2011 will mark Williams' 16th Dame, twelve of which were spent at Grays, and his first ever Sleeping Beauty. "Funnily enough, last year was also my first Peter Pan", he informs me. The youngest of all pantomime titles, Peter Pan joined the genre in the 1990s and is now one of the most frequently produced; however, although much loved by audiences, it is somewhat feared by performers due to its status as the Macbeth of Pantoland. "It's weird, I hear that all the time," Williams says as bad memories come flooding back. "It's like James Barrie is saying, 'Please don't do it as a panto! Don't take the piss out of me!' We had little Michaels flying off upside down at one point," he says chuckling. "His nightie went over and he just flew off!" For Williams, comedy is the vital component of any pantomime. "If people leave the building laughing, you've got them and they'll come back," he says. Part of a pantomime's comedy provision comes in the form of the slosh scene and Williams is particularly excited about this year's. "Paul [Hendy] phoned me and said 'I've seen this crazy bathroom', so I said 'Buy it, 'cos no-one does things like that anymore.' People are frightened to do a basic slosh, so I'm looking forward to that. No-one even does a decent kitchen scene anymore. No-one gets covered. I saw one in Hackney where they put lino down and wore these big aprons. I think the worst thing that happened was someone got a bit of flour in their face. It was all very safe. You want them to be covered in it." Williams adores pantomime's set pieces, but is fearful of their future. "What worries me," he says "is that they will all be forgotten. There are so many old routines that people don't do anymore. And I don't know whether it's because they think they're old hat or whether they're not aware they're out there? Paul Harris has got that good book out with all the old stuff, but then if you don't know how to do it, you're lost." There isn't much Williams doesn't know about pantomime's many conventions and practices and he even designs his own costumes, with a little help from his mother-in-law. "I say I'd like something like that, then I go out and buy all the fabric and she makes them," he explains. It's a perfect partnership. Many Dames strive for a new costume at every entrance, often requiring super-quick changes worthy of a Guinness World Record to make it back on stage fully clothed. Has he ever suffered from the fear of most Dames - a spectacular wardrobe malfunction? "Oh yes, I've had a lot of failure with costumes," Williams laughs. "Like when you've had to do the whole thing to front because you're zip's wide open and your arse is hanging out! There's been a few hairy moments." With his hand already in the design of his costumes and an eye for injecting extra comedy into the show during rehearsals, I wonder if Williams would ever like to write or direct his own pantomimes? "I would like to direct. I like to write," he affirms. "Over the years I've written thing like comedy routines and songs and stuff like that, so it would be nice to direct one. Maybe I could direct one and go and do my own?" If the chance arose Williams would stage Dick Whittington "because there's so much comedy in it." You can almost see the creative cogs whirring in his head as he starts to plan the slapstick sequences. "Sarah the Cook is a fantastic part because you get the shop routine, which is brilliant; you get the hypnotist scene with the rat; you get the mop routine; the cooking - there's everything in there!" From talking to Williams, it is clear that he is positively passionate about pantomime. "It's such a great thing -there's nothing like it," he concludes. "You never get an atmosphere like it in a theatre. You never get that laughter. You can hear the excitement over the tannoy as you're getting ready. You look out and people are loving it; they're absolutely delighted to be there. That's what keeps you going!" Damian Williams plays Nurse Nellie in Evolution Productions' "Sleeping Beauty" at the Lyceum, Sheffield from 9th December 2011 - 8th January 2012.
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