Last year I wrote a bespoke pantomime for the professional panto at Cheltenham Playhouse. The show received rave reviews “I haven’t laughed so much in a very long time!” (Glos.info) and broke box office records at the venue. But how did I go about writing a new take on the traditional story in the first place?
The traditional panto tale of Jack and the Beanstalk is well known, and my favourite challenge as a writer is to balance the elements audiences have come to expect from the pantomime stories, with creating a Cheltenham-based twist specifically for audiences at the Playhouse. When the Producers, Director and I first met up to discuss this year’s script we played around with different concepts and themes landing on an alpine setting. Something a little different to most productions of Jack and the Beanstalk.
All great pantomimes have a strong moral message hidden somewhere underneath all the jokes, songs and laughter. At it’s core, Jack and the Beanstalk is a story about believing in yourself, being a good and loyal friend, standing up for your family and for what you believe in. It can sometimes feel like the least Christmassy of the great pantomime titles with its farmland setting and vegetable growth themes. So I set out to ensure this was a magical festive fun-filled adventure for the whole family.
The setting of the snowy town of Chilltenham gave us the winter cosiness and the strong festive feeling we wanted. Throw in our principal lead Jack, and pantomime dame Nellie Nein, the all important giant, an ice cream parlour and a moo-sic loving cow, and the key story points are in place. Jack’s pantomime cow is often named Daisy, so I decided to call our cow Edelweiss in a nod to the famous mountain flowers that grow in the alps.
Director Kieran Mortell suggested the idea that we use the concept of a Snow Angel to bring our pantomime fairy to life and help Jack develop the self belief to defeat the villains. So I created a backstory where Jack created the Snow Angel tying them together with magic.
Another character who inspires Jack to achieve his destiny is Jill. Inspired by climate campaigners like Greta Thunberg, our Jill is an accomplished scientist, passionate about the environment and a keen snowboarder to (ski) boot. Gone are the days of whimpering, simpering love interests who are helplessly kidnapped!
Every panto needs a good villain, and the germanic prefix ‘Herr’ felt ripe for a punny name, and thus Herr Kütte was born. Then there’s the Energy Giant inspired by a villain that has plighted all of our lives over the past few years!
The musical numbers in the show range have a strong musical theatre influence drawn from hit shows like Come from Away, Billy Elliot, Singin’ in the Rain (or in our case, snow) and Something Rotten, to a legendary classical piece (with a little panto twist) Offenbach’s ‘Can-Can’ affectionately re-named the ‘Cone-Cone’ in our version with it’s new ice-cream flavoured lyrics. These set pieces and production numbers offer a great opportunity for the wider ensemble to shine and challenges the production team to create truly magical sequences!
I’m so proud our show brought the magic of pantomime to Playhouse audiences once again – and audiences were delighted with the reference to a certain local sporting legend. Can you guess who it might be? Eddie the Eagle who turns out to be Jack’s father following a romantic encounter with the dame years ago at the Bierkeller!
Production Pictures
