Guest Blog: “Panto is Hamlet in a Nappy": Actor Justin Brett on Being Serious About Fun and The High Art of Low Comedy in Panto

Panto is a funny one. (Hopefully literally.) It is one of the most popularly attended theatre events in Britain, simultaneously being one of the most maligned. It is often fobbed off as being too gaudy and yet it endures. Why? I believe Panto actually speaks to a deeper need in all of us for stories - specifically those deep, old folk stories that run through all our human veins - and the need for that which is familiar.

Modern Panto is also (or at least, can be) a culmination of comedy, tragedy, street theatre, melodrama, commedia dell’arte, physical theatre, improv, standup, Music Hall, kids’ theatre, ballet, spectacle, immersive entertainment, celebrity culture, satire, game show, and musicals. Hang on, maybe it’s not quite as gaudy as we thought…

I have done, in my career, a LOT of Pantos. And I grew up watching Panto. My dad was an actor, and at Christmas if he wasn’t in one, then we’d always go and watch one. For me, as a kid, the story was everything – I remember the passion with which I used to scream at the injustices of the villain-filled worlds I was watching, the thrill I felt at the resolution of conflict. And the fluttering inside that I did not yet understand, but definitely felt, at the romance. 

I am currently in rehearsal for Sleeping Beauty at Broadway Theatre, Catford, written and directed by Susie McKenna, who used to run Hackney Empire, and made that Panto the institution it has now become. Our script is tight, funny, rooted in the local community and very inclusive. Susie believes, as I do, that wherever you’re doing a Panto it should reflect and respect the demographic and heart of your audience. The rehearsal room this year is, as I believe it always should be, a place of laughter, discovery, commitment. And messing around.

The cast of this year’s Sleeping Beauty comprises of people who have traversed many different disciplines. For myself, among other projects, I’ve spent the last 15 years as a performer in Showstopper – The Improvised Musical, so have had the chance to hone improv, comedy and singing chops pretty well – skills which also happen to be perfect for Panto. We have among us some fresh-faced newbies into the business, comics, actor/musos, more serious actors, and musical theatre pros.

For all of us, the work is serious, the scenes are based in truth, the story is being told in earnest, and we are all discovering this by messing around together (but in a very serious way). To make Panto work, and for the audience to have fun, the cast should also be having fun onstage; not at the expense or the exclusion of the audience - quite the opposite - the audience are invited in to the process. They are colluding witnesses for the dropped lines that are laughed at, the mistakes, the nods, the winks; the hideous rehearsed corpsing (please - just don’t - you’re BETTER than that!).

And all across the country, Panto practitioners are people at the top of their game. It’s a melting pot of the whole entertainment industry. That dancer there? Spent a year in Moulin Rouge. That celeb from Eastenders? They were one of the kids in Matilda for a year. Somebody in your Panto had a part in the Star Wars franchise. 

Susie McKenna’s Sleeping Beauty script is a tale of female empowerment – the twist being that Princess Tahlia (Beauty) is woken up by the platonic true love’s kiss of the Dame (her nanny), and then goes on to lead a daring rescue of the Prince, who has been captured by the evil Carabosse. Obvs, she and the goodies prevail. It’s a classy, modern take, with all the necessary ingredients in the mix.

Panto is often a child’s first visit to the theatre; it’s often people’s only visit to a theatre in the year. Not only that, it’s expensive to take a family to Nandos, let alone to see a show of any kind. We as practitioners, have a duty to honour that commitment that the audience make to us; to surprise the parents from the community who have ponied up their hard-earned cash, and remind them that they can enjoy the show just as much, rather than use it as an excuse for a 2-hour nap while someone entertains the kids.

Panto is Hamlet in a nappy; Beckett in a bath of beans; Johnson in long johns. It’s gaudy and brash and all the better for it. It’s the High Art of Low Comedy. Embrace it. We need it. Times is hard, and Panto will make your Christmas just that little bit better. And as Dolly Parton famously says, ‘It costs a lot of money to look this cheap”.

Justin Brett performs as Dame Nanny Nora in Sleeping Beauty, which runs from 4- 31 December at Broadway Theatre, Catford

Rehearsal Photo Credits: Marc Senior

To post a comment, you must register and login.