29 Sep 2023
Having lunch with a fairy, a mermaid and Ken Barlow’s son might seem like a random dream but it actually happened this week. Never in all my days did I imagine I would be able to discuss my favourite Buddhist quote “Whatever is in the way is the way” over falafel with a Corrie legend.
And what was in the way – in case you’re wondering – was Ian Kirkby’s huge dress and hat.
Of course I am talking about the St Albans panto press lunch at Aspava where we were able to get excited about Paul Hendy’s annual carefully crafted collaboration with the cast and muse over some wider topics with them. Quite frankly there are only so many times I can pun about things being behind people – oh no there isn’t…oh yes there is – or something.
Evolution Productions deliver a punching performance every Christmas, with a brilliant mix of dance, acting and singing and this year Peter Pan will be flying high in the safe hands of director Dorcas Wood.
Coronation Street’s Chris Gascoyne (Peter Barlow) is obviously used to the fast turnaround of scripts in theatre and television, but he says panto is different from both of these: “In panto you can’t say, ‘Why do I do this, why does the character do that, what’s the natural progression of the character?’ You know, there isn’t any of that really, so it’s quite difficult to go, ‘How am I going to do it?’ But you know, there’s two shows a day for three weeks, three on a Saturday, and a week’s rehearsal.”
Unlike past performances, his three kids are now too old to come along this time, and despite prompting from ourselves, he’s unlikely to be able to persuade screen dad William Roache to attend either.
“Do you know he’s 91 and he lives in Manchester?” Chris explained why it wasn’t going to happen.
Is he like a father figure then? “He’s like a good friend. He’s a lovely guy. He has a mentality, he doesn’t like to look back and he doesn’t like to look forward. He’s the definition of living in the moment.”
So does he also live in the moment? “I do. I mean, I try to. I keep trying to come back to now, and that means without any baggage.
“Somebody once said to me, ‘Yeah but what problems do you have right now in this moment?’ I said, ‘Well, right now, none’ and that’s it really.”
Chris will be leaving the cobblestones of Weatherfield next year after 23 years in the role.
“I’m leaving in October, I’ve got a lot of stuff coming up, I’m really busy at the minute, I’ve got to get through it, it’s a lot, but it’s good. I’ve been juggling so many episodes out of order at the moment, and all the scenes out of order, so I’ve got like 15 or 20 acts on the go.
“You can’t improvise because you’ve got to remember you’ve got to do pick-ups and the other actors waiting for cues but I never go on that set knowing 100% of my lines. You don’t commit to deep memory like you would in a play, because you’ve got to do the scene, move on, do another one. So, as soon as you’ve done them, you’ve been on them. The amount of time I spend learning lines, I wish I could have that time in my life back.
“I haven’t seen it yet but I’ve got a really, really lovely last episode.”
He has covered a variety of hard-hitting topics over his time on the show, but considers Peter’s battle with alcoholism to be the most crucial.
“Alcoholism, we don’t choose that. It’s a disease. It’s not something you bring on yourself. So many people can relate to the stories we tell, you know. Maybe they help some people, maybe they don’t, you know. Or at least people reflect sometimes. And I think that’s what we want from any kind of medium.”
I asked Chris what one piece of advice he would give somebody: “Be kind to people, and give yourself a break. We’ll all be a bag of bones one day. It’s true, we stress about it, because we think we’re here forever, and we’re not. It matters only that you care for people, you look after yourself and you love people.”
Chris said he is excited to begin rehearsals revealed that he and St Albans panto legend Ian Kirkby (playing Mrs Smee this year) go back a long way: “I grew up with Ian, and then he went to RADA the same year I went to Central [The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama]. We’ve worked on TV together in a few things, we’ve done plays together, so it’s nice to do this after all these years. We were laughing at the poster of me and him outside the theatre, I said, ‘All that work we did on Shakespeare, in Chekhov, it’s all paid off now!’. We end up dressed like this, having a laugh.”
Ian is carrying out his “second tour of duty as the Dame”, or so he puts it, so what did he learn from last year? “I learned absolutely nothing from last year. No. I’ll tell you what I learned more than anything else. What hard work it is being a Dame.
“Even when you’re off stage, you’re getting changed all the time, and yet some of the changes are very quick, so you’re constantly on the move, and you’ve got these lovely ladies sort of ripping all of the dresses off and getting you changed.
“The basic set-up is, I have a pair of stripy leggings on. You keep your shoes on the whole time, in my case my little desert boots. Then you have a singlet on to soak up all the sweat that you’re pouring out. And then you have a bra on top of that that’s padded. That’s your basic stuff. Oh, and sometimes you have knickerbockers or bloomers on. I lost a stone last year doing this show.”
Ian explained that all the dresses are made so you can lay them out on the floor and step into them. And two dressers pull them up and fasten him in and put the next headdress on so he can walk straight out on stage. (I mean, it sounds like a tough job, but somebody has to do it).
“Because I’ve been pantomiming so long, I learn constantly. Over all those years I’ve picked up no end of things. I mean, a lot of what I do as the Dame, I’ve learnt from watching the good ones like Bob Golding and Ben Roddy down in Canterbury. It’s the old adage in this business, across the board of acting, you steal but you steal from the best. You squirrel that away and you save it for when you can use it.
“I can tell you exactly what he’s like, because we’ve known each other from the age of 13. We’ve known each other for 40 years, so it’s going to be quite a big thing that we’re back together. I think the last time we were on stage together was 30 years ago. That’s a brilliant story, isn’t it?”
We’ll definitely be using that, I tell him.
“It’s the sort of thing you could tell a local journalist to do. Yes, and they might want to write it down, and the readership might find that quite interesting,” he joked.
“So a couple of Nottingham lads. Far from home, far from talented. He’s worked for Evolution a couple of times before, and he knew we wanted to do a panto this year, so, and I said to him we’re doing Peter Pan as I know he’s done Captain Hook before. He just happened to turn up here on the same night as Paul Hendry. They talked it over and we all thought it was a good idea.
“I think we start rehearsals on the 27th of November. Believe it or not, we get this show on in seven days, folks! The first night is the 8th of December and you can expect all the classic routines and fun and games.”
A couple of years ago we were sat in this very restaurant, and [former EastEnder] Rita Simons flossed her tooth with a strand of hair. She had a bit of stuck parsley and this was her life hack. I’ve been doing it ever since. (Thanks, Rita!)
I decided to ask Ian if he had any similarly useful tips: “Er, whenever you need to put a panel pin into something, they’re very small and you risk hitting your thumb with the hammer. So you take a little piece of paper and you push the pin through the paper and you hold it over where you want and you tap it in.”
A mermaid appears at the table and it is time to talk to Jocasta Almgill who is currently starring as Rizzo in Grease at the Dominion. She was buzzing with excitement after donning her costume for the first time: “Christmas is such a wonderful time and I feel like we’re really going to be a part of the community for a month. People forget how hard panto is. It takes a lot of energy and you do two shows a day, every day, sometimes three. So, you know, it’s going to be tough, but I’m really looking forward to it.”
She has a beautiful energy and an amazing singing voice – I’m looking forward to hearing her performance on stage.
We are then introduced to CBeebies’ Maddie Moate from Maddie’s Do You Know?, who is in full Tinkerbell get-up, something which doesn’t lend itself to eating a slap-up spread of Turkish cuisine.
“I’ve just had lunch and can barely breathe in this!”
Prompted to recall ghosts of pantomines past, she remembers her own childhood: “I do have memories of going to Theatre Royal, Theatre Royal in Windsor. I think what encouraged me to get involved in panto more than anything is that a lot of my CBeebies family had all been doing panto for a long time.
“I think I started getting involved in the Christmas shows on TV as an opportunity for me to do a bit of singing and dancing again, having not done it for a while.”
Maddie’s Do You Know? was a bid to make science accessible for young audiences, exploring the workings of everyday objects by asking how they are made or how they work?
As a science educator she is proud about how her resources can be really useful for teachers: “I do feel for teachers. I think there’s a lot of pressure around science teaching, especially at that primary age. For teachers who are having to do all the subjects it’s tough because I think there’s a pressure that it should be like, ‘whiz, pop, bang’ and really exciting. I do think you can have interesting conversations about something like evaporation, but there’s a lot of pressure.
“So I always love it when I find out that teachers watch my shows, whether on CBeebies or the YouTube videos that I’ve made, when I know that they’re useful to teachers, that for me is like the creme de la creme comment.
“We stopped filming ‘Do You Know?’ in 2020, but they keep recycling it, so the show still feels new to each new audience. We’ve only got three years with the kids on CBeebies and then they refresh themselves.”
Maddie moved to the local area in September, but since then has been in Bristol and Tanzania, so has yet to properly explore St Albans.
“Most of my knowledge of this area is B&Q, IKEA and Dunelm. Restaurants are definitely something I’m investigating, I’m so into my food. I’ve had a recommendation about that one on the way to the Cathedral, Lussmanns, and I love Hatch. That was one of the first places that sold St Albans to me.
“I love the bagels at Brad & Dills. I’ve literally had nearly all of them. I like the Korean fried chicken one and the standard breakfast one. Oh my God, the melty cheese!”
Never one to miss a bit of self-promotion, I steered her in the direction of the St Albans Times, where she can check out James Cameron’s recommended restaurants for herself!
To book tickets for this year’s pantomime, visit the Arena website at alban-arena.co.uk/events/peter-pan-2023/
