Christmas begins in February for the Everyman – and now Playhouse – rock’n’ roll panto writers, Laura Davis discovers
WATER guns, men in ridiculous dresses, actors who race to the back of the stage between scenes to join the band – it can only be the famous Everyman rock ’n’ roll panto.
Except this year, of course, it isn’t.
With the beloved Hope Street theatre demolished ready to be rebuilt in sparkling new form, its panto pilgrims are having to beat a retreat to Williamson Square.
There, on a traditional stage in front of a three-tiered audience instead of an in-your-face thrust style setting, they will recreate the annual festival spectacular in the Playhouse Theatre.
And the biggest challenge of all is making sure the result is not too snazzy.
“There are lots of things we can do at the Playhouse that we couldn’t at the Everyman – flying, scene changes but it was really very important to us that we didn’t use too many tricks,” explains Mark Chatterton, one half of husband-wife writing team who have been behind the rock ’n’ roll panto for the past 10 years.
“We really wanted to keep the spirit of the Everyman shows, which have a kind of naive charm. We wanted to still have that party atmosphere and make sure there was an anarchic feel.
“For me, the great thing about the Everyman panto is that there aren’t any tricks – it’s about the actors coming on and just having fun.”
For Cinderella: Mop in the Name of Love, they will be welcoming back regular stars Francis Tucker and Adam Keast, who between them have clocked up more than 20 years in the panto.
“It makes a real difference to know who you’re writing for,” says Sarah Nixon, the other half of the panto team.
“You can hear how they would talk.
“All the actors are so talented, they can play a minimum of three instruments to grade eight standard.
“I hope at the end of the show the audience says ‘wow, there is only that amount of actors who’ve created all this magic’.”
Christmas for the writers begins in January, when they start discussing ideas. As well as the Liverpool panto they write them for other theatres – but only the Everyman/Playhouse has a rock ’n’ roll theme.
