As I sit in the Upper Circle in the Palace Theatre in Watford, looking down at a sea of little people, I am filled with Nostalgia and taken back to the Derngate Theatre in Northampton in the year 1998.
Before I take you on the journey back to a pre Millennium world, I must explain the reason for the sea of little people wearing builders vests during the year 2023. You see, there are only two demographics of person who find themselves watching a 10am showing of a pantomime. Excited School children on a School trip and also this particular excited couple of Adults who had a Lunchtime date with a Nando's and a Christmas shopping trip to cram in, before racing home to make the dogs dinner. The former being the ones wearing the uniform of High Visibility clothing, so that their equally highly visible teachers didn't loose them in the sea of other highly visible little people.
As I sat watching the little people dancing to Barbie Girl By Aqua which was played over the sound system before the show started, my mind started to drift to my first ever Pantomime, in 1998 (1 year after Barbie Girl was released). Back then at the age of 10, I was one of the little people sitting at the front watching in Aww as Kirsten O'Brien flew over my head playing the role of Peter Pan. Incidentally the role of Captain Hook was played by Brian Blessed - though at that age, I had no idea who he was. The pantomime that got me hooked on the theatre was one stooped with tradition and ironically a complete contrast to the contemporary re imagining of Cinderella that I was about to embark on in Post Millennium Watford.
Back to the present and once the Watford Pantomime had begun, there became a huge irony to my nostalgic mind wanderings back to yesteryear. The pantomime was actually set on New Years Eve 1999 and despite this being almost a quarter of a century ago, the script was very contemporary, creating somewhat of a huge paradox in my mind. To class something set in the year 1999 as contemporary, really drilled home how traditional the pantomimes we usually watch are.
The pantomimes we usually attend at Milton Keynes, Aylesbury, Dunstable et al usually have 2-3 hugely famous names, 2 moderately famous names and a supporting cast. As such there is plenty of upstaging that occurs and fighting for the limelight or biggest laugh. At the palace today the situation couldn't be further from that and we loved the fact that a lesser known cast lead to a very level playing field with all of the performances complementing each other, rather than upstaging fellow cast members. One of the personal highlights for me was the flying plane. Whilst there was clearly not the budget or facility of the Derngate to fly amongst the audience, I was once again amazed in the same way as my childhood self when the plane took flight, despite not protruding beyond the proscenium arch.
The only disappointment for me was the lack of jokes and mockery of the local Football team - Something the Milton Keynes Pantomime always excels at. Despite that however as a Luton fan, I was impressed at the sense of humour of the lighting designer who left the mood lighting in our Clubs colours during the interval.
The pantomime had a great Feel Good Christmas vibe which set us up perfectly for our festive Christmas day out in Watford. It was also great to hear the Ensemble piece at the end as rather than the often overused Bruno Mars Marry You or S Club Seven Reach, this particular Ensemble featured a Christmas medley. Thank you to all involved for setting us up for our Christmassy date day together.
