Having landed three national Panto Awards in recent years, the Poole pantomime is increasingly widely recognised as a high quality, fun-loving annual celebration of traditional family entertainment at Lighthouse.
In no small part that’s down to the vision and skill of writer director Chris Jarvis who, along with a creative team that includes production designer James Smith, choreographer Daniel Donaldson Todd, musical director Adam Tuffrey and the venue’s in-house producers, works tirelessly all year to make a show that puts smiles on faces.
There’s a confidence about the Poole panto and ahead of opening night on Thursday. hopes are high for this year’s production of Sleeping Beauty.
“It’s about building a consistent brand that people know they can trust and know the sort of show they’re going to get, the level of spectacle and the quality of acting,” Chris explains.
“So much about pantomime is down to the atmosphere. There’s so much coming back at you from the audience, because they are another member of the cast almost, you can’t get away with fudging it onstage. It has to be completely genuine in order to get laughter and joy back and it only works if you’ve set your stall out well.
“I think we’ve been really fortunate in Poole, but a lot of that has been down to really good casting and I’m only a part of that.”
Alongside CBeebies favourite Chris as Dame Nanny Nutkins, the instantly familiar EastEnders/Grange Hill star Todd Carty will play King Tucker with Sarah-Louise Young as bad fairy Carabosse and the return of Poole’s very own Josh Haberfield as Harry. West End players Isabella Kibble and Melaina Pecorini feature as Princess Rose and Fairy Sunbeam respectively, with Tom Mann – last seen at Lighthouse as Cupid in Beauty and the Beast – as Prince Ken.
“I’m really looking forward to working with this cast,” says Chris. “Todd Carty has been booked because he’s a brilliant actor and he wants to do it, and he just happened to have loved performing in Poole earlier this year in The Mousetrap.
“The biggest new discovery this year has been Sarah-Louise Young because Carabosse is a massive part and she is quite often on her own so she needs to hold that stage. I think we should have a bit of fun with her part, which is good because she’s young and very good looking; she’s very physical and we can abandon some of the old ways of doing it.
“I’ve worked with Maureen Lipman, who is a very similar performer. She doesn’t stop thinking, doesn’t stop creating, and she is also a singer, she’s very physical and a voice artist as well as a good actor and dancer and everything else that she is – these people are gold.
“What’s interesting with Josh is that as well as an actor-singer-dancer, he’s also a clown and those skills are very hard to find and really necessary in a pantomime. We’re tackling two slosh scenes this year – one of them is quite big involving a lot of mess, which the kids will love, and hopefully the adults as well.
“Josh is like Justin Fletcher, really in control, and although I’m in it and Todd’s in it, it’ll be very much Josh who is leading it and making it work. He brings a youthfulness and energy – we’re lucky to have him.”
As he has done for the last three years, Chris is again donning the frock and big pink boots to play the Dame. As far as audiences are concerned he’s a natural at the Dame game and wears it very well, but how does it feel on the other side of all that make up?
“I wasn’t sure to start with whether I’d be able to have the stamina to do all the changes,” he admits, “but actually I find it easier in many ways than what I used to do. It’s a different kind of energy and I’m 55 so it’s kind of right that I’ve graduated into the role.
“I used to walk into the rehearsal room feeling like a child with all the old duffers talking about the old days… and now I’m that old duffer!
“But I find it much easier to play a character that’s different to me so I put on the mask with make up an inch thick and a ridiculous dress. I want my Dame to be very different to a drag queen – that’s an art form in its own right and more feminine. I’m a man in a dress, I wear DM boots and, if anything, I lower my voice to play it. I think that is the joke, then, because I’m a man in a dress, in my opinion you can be rude about the Dame without being offensive to women.”
:: Sleeping Beauty opens on Thursday 12 December and runs until Sunday 5 January. Tickets are on sale now at https://www.lighthousepoole.co.uk/event/sleeping-beauty/ or call 01202 280000.
(NC)