26 Sep 2024
Laura Bill meets the cast of Evolution Productions’ annual Arena panto…
It’s a wonderful yet familiar experience to me now, after a few years of being able to cover the Alban Arena pantomime.
The process usually involves a launch event (this), then joining a rehearsal day about week three and shoving my phone in their faces while furiously writing stuff down, stopping every so often to marvel at some amazing dancing or perfect performers with wide eyes and huge smiles.
The thing that always strikes me is that this professional,
creative, top-notch panto is always so much more than the sum of its parts – which are always fabulous individually – and one thing the cast tell me year after year is the way they all get on, the family-feel and banter behind the scenes which all adds to the magic and success of the overall experience.
But, I always want the work I do to be ‘fresh’ – as does the founding director of Evolution Pantomimes’ Paul Hendy – and that is what I plan to do in our little gathering at the Arena chatting to some of the cast in this year’s show Cinderella.
Because it’s brilliant every year, cleverly written, wonderfully cast and always feels buzzing with rapport and camaraderie, I wonder how I’m going to bring a new angle to my piece until I see Bob Golding and Ian Kirkby in high vis jackets and leopard print dresses, clutching neon wigs under their arms while hovering around the sausage rolls and hummus.
I grab Ian and give him a cuddle and ask him if he’s just met everybody together this morning.
He said he’d worked with a couple of the cast members before: “And, there’s a bloke called Bob Golding who’s turned up. Yeah, yeah, I don’t know who he is.”
I asked if Bob was reclaiming Ian’s ‘St Albans Legend’ title and joked that he had only had it for one year: “Two… Two years, two years, okay!
“Paul thought it would be a great idea to put the two of us back together to play the Ugly Sisters.”
I agreed it that was a great idea. And that St Albans does too. I grab the pair of them and we go into the auditorium to have a chat.
Bob told me: “Well it’s the highlight of my year. Of course it is. I walked in the building today – it was like waking up from a coma, it’s amazing.
“It was really beautiful and all the memories came flooding back and then I saw his lovely face greeting me. He said ‘hey’ and it’s like we’ve never been apart again. And we’ve settled straight back into our old dressing room, haven’t we?
“It’s lovely. I’m really chuffed.”
“And so am I. And already we’ve had such a laugh this morning. Mucking about,” added Ian.
I ask Bob about the other actors, specifically if he had previously worked with Samantha Womack who is playing the Fairy Godmother.
“I’ve not worked with Samantha. But you I know her in the social environment. And we have mutual friends.”
Bob and Ian, who have a special vibe that goes back a long way, will be reunited on stage for the first time since Bob left to go to Northampton panto in 2021. Bob is loved by so many St Albans people, who say he is the main reason they buy tickets for the show each year, alongside other ego-stroking compliments so I know this is a welcome return for everybody.
“We’re like Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker from James and the Giant Peach,” they quip.
I ask which songs they are singing: “We don’t know! We don’t know anything! You know the drill, Laura. We haven’t had the script yet. We get the script about a week before we start. When you talk to Mr Hendy, he’ll say he hasn’t written it yet.”
Bob told me: “I genuinely believe this year is going to be the best panto that we’ve ever done. I really think this is a dream team. And with the production team behind it as well.
“We are really, really looking forward to working with this new company. Some returning, some we haven’t worked with before.”
They said audiences this year can expect all the classics they love like the bench scene with the ghosts, as well as lots of other surprises.
One of the marketing staff comes to whisk them away and I jokingly exclaim that she is ‘on trend too’ with her animal print dress.
“Yeah, you should see her bloomers!” added Bob. And like all true comedians, the timing and delivery is bang on.
Samantha walks in in a blue Frozen-esque style dress and it’s such a joy to meet her as a massive EastEnders fan.
She was of course, Ronnie Mitchell, sister of Roxy and I’ve had the pleasure to meet Rita Simons several times so I have to ask Samantha about their friendship and if they watch each other in theatre: “We try to see as much of each other’s stuff as we can. I came to see her here at St Albans panto.”
Fascinatingly, Rita finds it best to learn her lines by listening to them through her headphones so I ask Samantha how she takes them in.
Samantha said: “I think I’m a mixture of both (visually and by ear).
“I’ll see the words first on the page, and there’s something about seeing them for me that is helpful. But with a play like Girl on the Train – where I was on stage the whole time – there is a dense amount of dialogue to learn.
“I was playing Rachel Watson who was a drunk, so she was rambling a lot of the time and a lot of her dialogue just didn’t make sense. That was hard to learn.
“It is when I get it on its feet, when I actually put words to actions, I find that’s when it locks in.
“Because it helps if you’re on stage left, you’re like, oh, this is that line, oh, I’m walking up stage for this line.”
I can feel the passion she has for acting and I know she is going to be a fantastic Fairy Godmother, so I ask if she identifies with the character in any way.
“I’m as far away from the Fairy Godmother as you’d ever get!
When I’m cast as the baddie it’s far more appropriate for me.
“I’m naughty and I have a cheeky sense of humour. And certainly with someone like Bob and Ian we’ll be trying to corpse each other all the time.”
She comes across as really warm and humble as we chat. Two years ago Samantha had quite progressive breast cancer and I asked how she’s doing now: “I’m completely better.”
I ask how she found her treatment as I personally believe the NHS is in a bit of a state and so I’m always keen to hear different viewpoints.
“I had it taken out privately because I knew at the time that the waiting list for the surgery was long and I was actually very lucky where I’d saved up enough.
“I used all my savings to get it out quite quickly because it was a high grade so I didn’t want to hang about.
“I changed to the NHS for like radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and they were great but they’re definitely under pressure.”
Samantha said she decided to talk about her experience at the time because she knew people would see her at hospital and she wanted people to know that they weren’t alone in their own struggles with the disease: “I don’t want people to think that it’s only them that gets it. I’ve got so many people that reached out and just said thank you so much for sharing it because it feels like it’s not just you. You know, people on the telly somehow have it, it feels fairer.”
As a child Samantha lived on the QEII with her grandma who was both an actor and a choreographer and inspired her career choice: “I was on this huge ship in the ‘eighties. I’d be around all the best orchestras in the world. I was about two years older when I started kind of learning the dances from the girls on the QEII and I had perfect pitch, so that was a good thing for a kid to have.”
And finally, did she wish they had given her a less final exit from EastEnders, especially as her last scene was as a dead body in a coffin?
“Well… There’s always hope for a return, because you think you see a dead body, but of course our cousin Billy worked in the undertakers, so you never know. You never know, and actually anything is possible.”
She is still close to EastEnders cast members and said they will probably be coming to see her as they are only down the road.
She describes them as “like family”, adding: “That’s what I love about panto, it’s for everyone. And the more fun we have on stage, the more fun they have in the audience.”
Next up is George Shelley who is playing Prince Charming. I jokingly ask if he has worked with any of these reprobates before… “I haven’t… I’m looking forward to it,” he says.
“This is my second time doing panto, so I’m really looking forward to being the prince in Cinderella again.”
“I went on X Factor,” he said after I wrongly told him he’d started out on CBeebies. (Rubbish researcher, what can I say?)
“Did you? I did GCSE drama,” I horrifying heard myself say in my recording of the interview. Hilarious. And not even trying. I should have been on the stage, for sure.
George also came second in I’m a Celebrity in 2015 and we talk about how hard it is in the jungle. He said everybody is exhausted and hungry and tired and even getting some water is very hard-going.
Does he identify with his character? “My mum says I’m charming!” he laughed.
So, classic question coming up: what does he think of St Albans? “I love St Albans. It’s kind of like my dream place to live, you know. I always come here, I go to The Waffle House.”
He said it’s been great meeting the whole cast for the first time: “It’s a beautiful day so St Albans just looks shiny and like it’s ready to have some magic.”
I asked him if he’s been in one of Paul’s pantomimes before, randomly adding, ‘I love Paul…but not in a creepy way’.
But this is not a lie. Paul Hendy is a talented, clever, empathic writer and everything he touches turns to gold.
As I walked out of the interviews, I saw the man himself standing near a huge lovely-looking platter of food, so pipe up: “I’ve only had one stick of cucumber, Paul, because… ever the professional, you know…”
He encouraged me to eat a bit more so I had an onion bhaji, which probably wasn’t what he meant.
I left the Arena thinking that even though they’ve only been together a couple of hours – if that – you can already feel the way this cast are gelling with each other. I’m really excited for this year but to have Bob and Ian back together again is really going to put the icing on the cake.
