Hurrah! It's panto time. Oh no it isn't, but...
A little midsummer madness
Picture (it shouldn’t be hard) a muggy August day, the kind when most people, considering their wardrobe options, might have been inclined to go for shorts and tee-shirt, leaving the cow suit for another occasion.
But Mick Potts is not ‘most people’ and, for now, we’re in that out-of-kilter land that demands we must imagine the depths of winter at the sweltering height of summer.
It’s called Pantoland and we’re gathered at the Theatre Royal for promotional purposes, Mick Potts, being of that land, displaying admirable professionalism while sweating like a… well, attired as a cow.
Feeling under-dressed in the midst of much showbiz finery, I suggest to Mick that he’s been a Pantoland citizen in these parts for some considerable time.
“It’s been 100 years so there’ll be a huge celebration during this panto, with party poppers, streamers and Champagne,” comes the deadpan reply.
“No, I think I’ve done 17 or 18 years, man and… man, because I started when I was 24. I love it. It’s Christmas and it’s great to be able to come back every year.
“The rest of the year is always busy with other things but the panto is so important.
“This year I’ll be spending my time in a field or being milked.”
He mops his brow and adjusts his mighty udders. He must have seen this coming when the first draft of Jack and the Beanstalk (new version courtesy of panto producer and Mr Big, Michael Harrison) landed and he clocked a character called Pat the Cow.
He does tend to get cast as the fall guy, I venture.
“Well, that’s all right. I don’t mind. But I feel I might change my mind about that very soon with this costume.
“This is the first time I’ve seen it and, more importantly, the first time I’ve been in it and the first time I’ve ever been this warm.”
Londoner Oonagh Cox, sitting with us at the table and prettily got up as Princess Jill, gently puts things in perspective.
“At least you don’t have to be the back of the cow.”
“That’s true,” concedes the cow. “Normally I suppose I’d have a mate behind me, lucky person.
“All exciting, all good. Just got to crack on.”
Oonagh is that rare thing in this Theatre Royal manifestation of Pantoland – she hasn’t been here forever.
The unique and amazing thing about this particular big city seasonal offering is that most of the team has been together for ages, decades even. I’m looking at you, Danny and Clive (and we’ll come to them in due course).
Oonagh’s the newbie, although she did play Cinders here four years ago. It can’t have been that bad. She’s back for more.
“I had a lovely run in Cinderella and I’m hoping this is going to be just as dreamy,” she says.
I’m momentarily lost for words. The last time I saw a Danny and Clive panto (as these are invariably known), the hapless young female lead got knocked backwards off a wall.
“The Little Mermaid was the last time we did that,” reflects Pat the Cow, knowledgeably.
“I think one thing we know for certain with the panto in Newcastle is you can never predict what’s going to happen,” says the third splendidly costumed member of our party.
This is Wayne Smith, soon to be appearing in his 10th Danny and Clive panto as villain Fleshcreep (although he’s played goodies, too).
An old hand, he doesn’t rule out the occasional unscripted moment of mayhem. “It depends what mood Danny Adams is in,” he says.
If Oonagh swallows hard, she maintains a bold front. A rising star of musical theatre, she reiterates that Cinderella had been “a great experience” and had taken her outside London for longer than she had experienced before.
She was Cinders again last Christmas in Southend but now she’s back here as Jill. “I got the train up yesterday and it felt like nothing had changed.”
Wayne’s usefulness lies in his versatility. Danny and Clive, whatever their seasonal guise (it’s Jack Trott and Farmer Trott this time), tend to be Danny and Clive. In past years the Fleshcreep sitting beside me has also been Dandini, Flash Harry, Tiger Billy, The Great Stromboli and various other roles.
“I think we’re extremely lucky in Newcastle because we’re one of the longest running pantos in the country,” he says through the make-up.
“With a week of rehearsals it’s about 11 weeks of our year, so a huge chunk. Some pantos only run for two weeks. I plan everything around the panto so as long as I’m welcome, I’ll be here every year.”
These aren’t empty words. Having just sold his home in Lincolnshire, Wayne was combining his promotional duties with a spot of North East house hunting.
Suddenly it’s all change and the seats vacated by Jill, Fleshcreep and the udder one are taken up by Danny (Adams), Clive (Webb) and singer Joe McElderry, colourful panto stalwarts one and all.
What a family affair this is! Danny is Mick’s brother. Joe might as well be. They’ve been doing this together now for so long.
It’s panto 21 for Danny and Clive – and would be 22, Clive reminds us, if it hadn’t been for Covid kiboshing Humpty Dumpty.
“We will do that one day, though,” promises Danny. (I bet they will. It offers a golden opportunity to dust down that knocking-off-the-wall routine.)
“I don’t know where the time’s gone,” he muses.
“This is the third Jack and the Beanstalk we’ve done. We did it the second year we were here.”
Clive: “The third?”
Danny: “Yes, this is the third.”
Clive: “Didn’t we do another one?”
Danny: “No, this is the third. One, two, three.”
Clive (laughing): “I’m not very good at maths.”
For more of this, get to Jack and the Beanstalk later in the year. In the meantime, the lives of Danny and Clive seem to be a perpetual bantering routine.
We fall to discussing scripts and what does and doesn’t work. Danny says that between the first rehearsal and the first performance everything can change.
“In rehearsal last year the bedroom scene didn’t feel like it worked. We rehearsed it 100 times and were then like, ‘Is this even funny?’
“When we got out there on the first night… the amount of laughter! It was meant to be a four-minute scene and it ended up going on for about 12 minutes. That’s what can happen.”
Recalls Joe: “It was one of the highlights of the show. Every day we looked forward to doing it but in rehearsal we’d come to hate it. It shows how the audience dictates what you do. They tell you what they want.”
Joe, a musical star in his own right, takes a fair amount of stick from Danny on stage but says he loves it.
“In other pantos,” Danny pretends to grumble, “you’ll see the princess has a song, the baddie has a song, everyone sings. In this one, ever since Joe came in, well, he stopped all that. He’ll sing everyone’s song.”
Danny’s disruption of Joe’s songs is a running gag.
“You’re both at either ends of the scale really, aren’t you?” says Clive.
“Flat and in tune,” chortles Danny.
“He doesn’t know a crotchet from a hatchet,” quips Clive to me.
This year Joe, equipped as ever with the most cumbersome wings known to man or beast, plays a character called Spirit of the Beans.
“I think that was deliberate,” he smiles. “Nine times out of 10 I’m nicknamed something so his opening scene with me is finding out what I’m called. It’s become a bit of a thing.”
“Last year he was Spirit of the Ring,” says Danny. “Why are you laughing?”
This, I sense, could go on indefinitely.
“The thing is,” says Danny, “because we’re great friends on and off stage, it’s hard to know sometimes when the show starts and stops.
“Backstage in the dressing room we’re all together laughing and joking and it just carries on.”
I can well imagine.
But it’s time for them to join the rest of the cast, for Joe to don his heavy wings, Mick to put on Pat’s impressive horns and Chris Hayward (turning out this year as Dame Trott) to adopt a glamorous damely pose for the cameras.
In an hour’s time it will have seemed like a summer fever dream.
Jack and the Beanstalk opens on November 24 and runs until January 17, 2027. Tickets are on sale – yes, already – and can be bought online from the Theatre Royal website or call the box office on 0191 232 7010.