Back to work

The last performance of the pantomime was Saturday night. My voice is still recovering and the beard is now two days old and hardly showing. I thought it best to shave my beard off as I was playing the dame. If you don’t know the tradition of pantomime, then a short explanation is probably necessary. All I can say is that the tradition goes back a couple of hundred years and has sort of evolved from comedia del arte stuff. The stories are mostly fairy stories, and traditional ones, such as Dick Wittington. One of the characters is always played as the dame, I.e. a man dressed as an unconvincing woman. There was another tradition that the ‘leading boy’ would be a tall young woman with an impressive bust and legs which looked good in tights. This is much more rare these days, but the dame traditon continues. Most years I play the dame in our local pantomime. This is the chief comic character, in effect a clown.

So with that project finished I am back to work now

The public approval of a seal, or something like that

Last night was the second of four performances of the village pantomime. We are sold out for the matinee and evening performances today. Both the audience and the cast and crew seemed to think last night’s performance was the best ever, or close to that. This is my fourteenth, and I can’t remember a better one. In a pantomime the audience are a part of the performance, and last night they were really good. As far as the performance went, I have noticed that Friday night is usually best, at a point where nerves and confidence are properly balanced. I am due to leave in a short time to get my make-up on. Two performances in a day is tiring, and Saturday night can be a little loose. I have a few bon-mots planned at certain points. If I get the chance i shall dive back home between performances, still in make-up but without false eye-lashes!

Pantomimes and gender

The final rehearsal proper was yesterday and the dress rehearsal for the pantomime is tomorrow evening. For the second year in a row I have been cast as the dame. That is not exactly true, it was more like I was told which role I was getting. I do understand why. In a small community it is not necessarily easy to get someone to become a temporary transvestite and make a complete prat of themselves. The worst thing for me is shaving off my beard. The facial fuzz / chin pubes have been a part of my face for almost twenty years, and has become a part of my self-image. I just shaved off the beard and I don’t recognise myself in the mirror. Now, I ought to make clear that playing the dame is in no way a piece of female impersonation. The idea is to have a man dressed as a completely unconvincing woman. Even a young child should be able to recognise the character on the stage as a man dressed as a woman. Female impersonators, like Danny la Rue made terrible dames. It is the nature of pantomime that the cross-dressing characters should never be convincing. Sometimes the ‘Leading Boy’ part is played by a young woman, but should have great legs and an impressive bust, in order to look good in tights and jerkin. I don’t think I have seen a panto in the past decade where the leading boy was a girl, but it used to be common. Anyhow, here is me as the dame in last year’s panto. I shall take some photos at the dress rehearsal and post them up before the first performance.

 

Do you like the false eyelashes?

Back to work

The pantomime finished almost a week ago, leaving me feeling a bit drained. In fact I was in no position to do any writing until Wednesday. Currently I am concerned to get an agent and a publishing deal. This may sound like a cop-out, but I am finding that I am not good at generating publicity and my income needs a boost. Mt experience of sending out drafts of my second Gentleman Spy novel has not been good. After receiving feedback I decided that it was probably wrong to start with a novel series, so I have sent out instead the first chapters of a very different book, ‘Sunbeam’, which is a rural noir novel set in 1953 and the near present. As far as I can tell there is nothing even nearly similar out there, so I hope it might find a market. I have written about 65k words so far and it should end up at about 110k.

In the meantime I am putting off publishing ‘Down in the Flood’ until I have sold ‘Sunbeam’ or have given up trying to do so due to lack of interest. My opinion, and those of early editors, is that this is easily the best thing I have done. For several years I have been planning to write a partially fictionalised book about a certain incident which happened near to where I live, but local sensitivity on the subject is still strong. It was my wife who suggested that I put the story in another location. This I did, placing it in the area where I mostly grew up, and adding some of my own memories as well as those of some friends and relatives.

[Slight break there as I had to chase a squirrel away from the bird feeders]

Anyhow, to return to the theme, I have sent off some initial chapters to an agent selected after some research about their current clients. And I shall only send it to one agent at a time and carefully target each one. This is a business deal and it should benefit both parties. Research seems to be the key here.

Pantomime Dame

Today is the first performance of our village pantomime. This year it is ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. This is a traditional fairy tale, and most pantomimes use these traditional tales as the basis of the plot. The Pantomime as we know it dates from the early nineteenth century, but has roots in the old Italian Comedia del Arte.

One of the features of these productions is the appearance of stock characters. These include a clown, a two dimensional villain, a man dressed as a woman and a girl/woman dressed as a man. The most iconic of these is the pantomime dame, the man dressed as a woman. This is not a case of using a female impersonator. It should be obvious to even the youngest member of the audience that the character portrayed is a man in a dress.

Please do not ask me to hazard a guess as to the significance of the role in British society. No psycho-babble please! It has just become a tradition. So, not minding making a prat of myself I have shaved off my beard and am donning a dress tonight. Last year it was our village shopkeeper, also bearded, who appeared as the dame. As that pantomime was based around a circus he was offered the job of bearded woman by the ringmaster!

Anyway, enjoy the photos!

Looking for a villain

It’s the pantomime season here in Britain. If you don’t know the artform, it’s a little difficult to explain why there is a man dressed up as a woman and the leading boy is, rather obviously, a girl. Nonetheless, there is one part in the patomime which is easily the most fun to play, and that is the villain. There has been a bit of a complaint this side of the pond that many Hollywood movies, especially the action ones, have British actors as the main villains. Personally, I don’t have a problem with this. They are just following the old tradition of the pantomime villain. Think moustache-twirling, eye-rolling, maniacal laughter, chewing the carpet etc.

Well, this year, in our village pantomime I am playing the villain, and it is a hoot. At the same time, I am trying to complete the second in my series of novels. But I am unhappy with the villain I currently have. If you have heroic deeds being done you need a decent villain to work against. What would Sherlock be without Moriarty? or Robin hood without the Sheriff of Nottingham? As part of the process of artistic cross-fertilization, or synthesis, if you prefer, I am now going to give the book villain some of the qualities of the pantomime villain.

Oh, and I just looked it up, and the book has now sold 507 copies in 3 and a bit days – way-hey!