Person: Vicky Gunstone

Cinderella Interstellar!

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a pantomime that looked quite a lot like ‘Star Wars’…

Take Cinderella and her ugly sisters and then thrust them into a world of science-fiction adventure, inhabited by characters that are nearly, but not quite, those from the epic blockbuster trilogy of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.

A cocky, star-faring smuggler and his hairy co-pilot, a kid who’s a whiz behind the controls of space fighter, a monk-like individual wise in the ways of the Source, a black-clad villain in a full-face helmet with breathing difficulties and an army of soldiers who can’t hit a Death Star at close range. They’re all there, just not as you knew them.

Throw in the best Cantina band this side of Tatooine to help belt out some brilliant songs, and you’ve got a powered up panto ready to do the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.

This is the panto you were looking for.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

This is the second time that Theatre Workshop have visited the strangely English forest that exists just outside Shakespeare’s Athens. Peter Quince and his band of tradesmen cum would-be actors have wandered out from the city to ensure they’re not overlooked as they go about their amateur thespian labours, but either they’ve wandered much further than they intended from the busy streets of London, or there’s a thriving English enclave of ex-pat artisans tucked away in the shadow of the Parthenon. 

There are changes. Not least in the location of our endeavours. Having seized the opportunity to take the group from its home and perform in the open-air just three years previously, we’ve gone further, and at the invitation of Southern Water, will take the production to the shores of the Bewl Water reservoir, near Lamberhurst in Kent. Though the setting is idyllic, this represents no small undertaking, especially for an amateur group whose members are mostly in full-time employment. So we can feel for Messrs Starveling, Bottom, Snug, Snout and co., as we do a full day’s work and then barrel down the A21.

But we’ve not given up on our first open-air home, and will perform first at The Woodman before packing up and heading for Bewl. We could hardly do otherwise, given that it’s our regular watering-hole.

Let’s talk about the music for a moment. Most of the music you’ll hear will be played live by Mark Taylor, though there are a couple of passages that are pre-recorded. He’s composed most of it himself too, because he’s a talented gentleman. Exceptions include the fairy and bergomask dances in Act IV and V which are set to traditional tunes. He’s also composed the music for ‘Philomel with Melody’, whose lyrics are by Shakespeare, and given that Shakespeare’s own lyrics to the fairy benediction at the end of the play are lost to us, we’ve used a 5th Century Celtic blessing as the basis for a song, which again will be accompanied by Mark Taylor’s music.

One last thing. The production is dedicated to the memory of Lesley Argles, a member of Theatre Workshop almost since the beginning. She died aged just 44, as the result of a tragic accident on the 13th July, only two weeks before curtain up. Her husband, Chris, who she met through the group, as well as her son, Luke, and daughter Kimberley, are all on stage here tonight. They were united in their decision that the production should go ahead with their full participation, despite grievous personal loss. They are certain it was what she would have wanted.

The Three Musketeers

France 1625.

A young nobleman called D’Artagnan leaves his family in Gascony, south-west France, and makes his way to Paris to seek his fortune and join the King’s Musketeers. Unfortunately he encounters Rochefort, Captain of the Cardinal’s guard at a rural inn, and after an ill-advised confrontation, loses his letter of introduction to M.de Treville, (the captain of the King’s Musketeers), his money and his sword. So, when he finally arrives at the French capital, his welcome is far from warm. Things take a turn for the even worse when his first meetings with Athos, Porthos and Aramis, the best of the Musketeers, result in him challenging each of them to duels. Finally, taken under the wing of the Three Musketeers rather than being killed by them, the young Gascon finds himself embroiled in the machinations of the cunning Cardinal Richelieu and his deadly agent, Milady de Winter, with plans to dishonour the Queen of France herself. A tale of high adventure, full of fun, swordplay and affairs of the heart…

Originally written by Alexandre Dumas (in collaboration with his regular ghost writer Auguste Maquet) and published in 1844, this swashbuckling historical tale became one of the most enduring adventures in literature, challenged only by, perhaps, ‘Treasure Island’. Numerous adaptations have been made, for stage and screen, including musicals, animation, and even an opera. The script that Chris Argles chose to direct was by Willis Hall, and had been published just the previous year, 1995. Although it keeps to the story, more or less, inevitably some liberties are taken and Hall leans into the humour, no doubt one reason for its selection.

It has passed into Workshop legend that Mike Brown, playing, or rather completely inhabiting the role of Porthos, at one point during the production ran across the stage completely naked, except for a strategically placed broad-brimmed musketeer hat (with a large feather). The part demanded it, obviously.

Treasure Island – The Panto, or ‘Panto Walks The Plank’

‘Treasure Island’, that perennial favourite of British children since its first publication, might seem like an obvious candidate for panto treatment. However, actually arriving at a well-rounded pantomime, incorporating all the essential elements of that genre but also sticking fairly strictly to the plot and characters of Stevenson’s great novel, poses a few problems!

So if ‘Panto Walks The Plank!’ gets under way as a close pastiche of ‘Treasure Island’, you might notice it change tack part way through, in order to accommodate a boarding party of pirate clichés inspired by a wider literature.

After all, as any fan of the Hollywood pirate epics of the 1930s and 1940s will tell you, ‘Treasure Island’ (one of the most famous adventure stories in English literature) is fatally flawed. There’s absolutely no love interest. In fact there are no women at all, with the exception of Mrs Hawkins, and she’s written out of the plot by page 27!

Now, no good pirate movie was truly complete without the love interest, usually represented by Maureen O’Hara. Or the presence of the dastardly Spanish, immaculately attired, elegantly presented and constantly scheming. In fact, the two elements were so quintessential that they were frequently combined through the well-worn dramatic device of ‘Swashbuckling hero falls for the haughty yet gorgeous daughter of the wicked Spanish governor’. So, expect to find both in our version too,

There are other important omissions from ‘Treasure Island’ that undermine its credentials as a bona-fide all-round classic pirate story. For instance, absolutely no-one walks the plank! Now, as it happens, that’s probably because no-one ever really did walk the plank. People who really know their pirates will tell you that this infamous punishment was simply the macabre whimsy of the Victorians and their overheated imaginations. However, if you’re set on telling a good old-fashioned blood and thunder tale of skulduggery on the high seas, you’ve got to include it. It’s part of the tradition.

Being a pantomime also dictates certain changes to the story. For instance, no-one is horribly murdered. Any violence is strictly of the gratuitous slapstick variety. And of course, Long John’s legendary parrot serves splendidly as a pantomime animal. This one even talks! And a ‘Crimson Parakeet’ does have a certain resonance with the 1952 Burt Lancaster comedy adventure movie, ‘The Crimson Pirate’, filmed in glorious Technicolour!

So, shiver your timbers and splice your mainbrace, while Theatre Workshop heaves to and delivers a hefty broadside of fun and adventure. And you may lay to that, arrrrrh!