It's Behind You

It's Pantomime  time, and that means men dress as women, women dress as men people suffer the indignity of dressing up as cows, horses, donkeys and b list celebrities can not only find work but receive top billing in small towns up and down the country.

Yes folks, it a pantomime blog. Roll up roll up, no that's the circus, oh no it's not....oh yes it is. Whatever it is, it's behind you!

Friends won a couple of tickets in a raffle to see Jack and the Beanstalk (or should I say  Jack and t'beanstalk as we are in Derbyshire) at the Pomegranate Theatre in Chesterfield. We joined their party to make a night of it.  

We arrive, we meet up, I break the display of plastic swords, tiaras, and snowflake fan things that were for sale. I was only trying to see if the sword lit up. I contemplated blaming a child, but instead took the responsible decision to move away and pretend it wasn't me.

We are seated down stairs in a nice block, I look around to admire the Pomegranate, it has a certain music hall atmosphere and appearance, very promising. On to the performance.  I was particularly excited as the fairy was to be played by Charlie Dimmock who I may have had a crush on when she was involved in the Ground Force gardening show...not sure if it was her bubbly flowing ginger hair, or her blatant lack of a bra that did it for me. I was curious if this was to be the case in a family pantomime, portraying a fairy called Organic. It was at least appropriate the pantomime story involved a large plant.

And there she was, stage left, introducing the evening, sporting enough foundation garments to support the crooked spire.

Anyway...

I was armed with throat sweets in the event all the shouting of 'its behind you' and 'oh no it isn't' got too much. It was an excellent performance all round, the dancing was great, the singing was actually fairly impressive and the jokes were what you expect for a family pantomime.

I was a little disappointed the principal boy was played by an actual boy, tradition there had gone out the window, such a shame, nothing like a bit of girl on girl action for an evening of family fun. I also only remember only one thigh slap, maybe a health and safety initiative, in action.  Only one thigh slap permitted per performance?

There was a rather surreal scene involving wallpapering, maybe a misunderstanding of the slap stick element by the script writers, it was however a skilful bit of comedy and went down well with the crowd. I loved some of the fabrics in the costumes, and the dame character's outfits got progressively more outlandish.

A good night was had, sore throats all round, no repercussions regarding the tampered with display (the sword was still lit up when we left) and us adults may have embarrassed the teens with our enthusiastic joining in.