This weekend marks the beginning of Panto Season 2015, a season that will see around 250 pantomimes entertain audiences across the UK. As is now tradition, Oldham Coliseum kicked off celebrations first when Mother Goose opened on 14 November and Birmingham Hippodrome will close the main season on 31 January 2016.
The Coliseum and Hippodrome’s book-ending of the season demonstrates the industry’s different schedules and producing models. Whereas the Coliseum creates its production in-house feauturing regular performers such as Fine Time Fontayne and Richard J Fletcher, the Hippodrome’s pantomime is produced by the world’s largest pantomime company, Qdos, and uses celebrity and spectacle as its selling point.
Venues and companies across the country know their audiences well. Indeed, knowing your audience and embracing change has been one of pantomime’s major features in ensuring its evolution and survival. Boxing Night openings are now a thing of the past as some theatres utilise the pre-Christmas and schools market whilst term is still running. Others focus on adult audiences, reflected in their casting, whilst an increasing number are predominantly family focused and have friendly performance times of no later than 5PM.
Knowing your audience also dictates the time you release certain information. Generally, commercial productions release cast information earlier than their in-house counterparts due to the way their productions are branded, packaged and advertised. Notions of tradition play a large role with the oft-cited maxim that non-celebrity-driven pantomimes are most pure and tradition. However, celebrity has always played an important role in the economy and ecology of pantomime and one could argue that local celebrities such as Fine Time Fontayne in Oldham hold as much local power as Julian Clary at the Birmingham Hippodrome.
Over the past month, the final pieces of casting have been slipping into place as companies go into rehearsal and performance. The biggest announcement, and often the latest each year, is that of New Wimbledon Theatre’s pantomime, this year Peter Pan. Marcus Brigstocke will make his pantomime debut as Captain Hook, with Austin Powers’s Mini-Mi Verne Troyer joining the cast as Lofty the Pirate alongside Jarred Christmas’s Smee and Flawless as the Pirate Crew.
In Poole, Chris Ellison also takes on the role of Captain Hook at the Lighthouse, whilst Joe Tracini joins Dick Whittington at the Britannia Theatre, Chatham as Idle Jack.
In Windsor, Anne Widdecombe returns to panto as the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella and in Bristol, Shaun the Sheep gives Snow White a run for her money with his fleece as white as snow.
Early indications from the National Database of Pantomime Performance suggest that this year will see a very new ‘Top 5’ of titles, with Peter Pan breaking through into fifth place for the first time and booting Sleeping Beauty out. Snow White rises from fourth place to third leaving a top five of:
- Cinderella: 19%
- Aladdin: 18%
- Snow White: 13%
- Jack and the Beanstalk: 12%
- Peter Pan: 10%
This year also sees a large increase in the diversity of titles, with Red Riding Hood, Mother Goose and Goldilocks all making appearances. There are also a number of new and growing titles, such as Rapunzel, Alice in Wonderland, Pinocchio, The Little Mermaid, Sword in the Stone, Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Dacw Mam Yn Dwad, based on a Welsh nursery rhyme.
Data is still being added and the final statistics, along with run lengths and ticket prices, will be released in the lead up to Panto Day 2015, which this year celebrates its fifth anniversary.
Less than a month away, Friday 11 December will see Pantoland come together to celebrate The Year of the Dame.
Having started as a simple social media experiment to see whether casts could get #panto trending on Twitter, Panto Day has grown to become a celebration of everything panto online and in theatres across the globe. This year’s focus sees a #dameoftheday on Twitter and Facebook, new Dame-related articles on the Panto Advice Page and a brand new docu-feature on the Pantomime Dame. For details of how you can get involved, check out Panto Day’s web site at Celebrate Panto.
This Panto News is the last of the year as our reviewing team gets set to see as many festive shows as possible. Make sure you keep checking back to read all about our gems and turkeys of the season.