Sinbad the Sailor

I know, I know: York­shire is full of York pan­to­mime bores — from the Eff­ing­ton Young Farm­ers to the Chuff­ing­ton Girl Guides who get up a coach party every year, the whole county resounds to “Have you seen the panto yet” from Decem­ber to the end of Janu­ary, and the jost­ling of com­pet­it­ive early book­ers to see who booked in March and where they were in the queue.

But, for all you out there who maybe don’t live within easy dis­tance of York, or who have never heard of Ber­wick Kaler, you are miss­ing maybe one of the last great Brit­ish pan­to­mime Dames as (s)he comes towards the end of a glit­ter­ing career.  This is true panto — there are no soap stars milk­ing their z list fame — but a cast of act­ors (m/f)  who have got  together for over 20 years at York Theatre Royal and have pro­duced a pan­to­mime which has all the tra­di­tional ele­ments, even the vestiges of a tra­di­tional plot, and a water scene, and cus­tard pies, and a baddy, and a dame, and a “but­tons”, and a prin­cipal boy and a female lead who epi­tom­ise young love at first sight.  The audi­ence, which is well over 50% grown-ups, boos the baddy as soon as he appears, sings the song with gusto, cries out for the tra­di­tional dis­tri­bu­tion of Wagon Wheels, and obli­gingly yells “Behind you” or “Oh yes he is” at all the right places.

I’ve never worked out which of the ad libs (and it’s really only the Dame who is allowed to do them) are truly ad lib, but the sight of some other cast mem­ber being reduced to giggles by sheer anarchy with the script is an annual delight.  Ber­wick Kaler as the Dame must surely go down as one of the greats (he writes the script too) and the part­ner­ship with Mar­tin Bar­rass (“But­tons”), David Leonard (the baddy) and Suzie Cooper (female lead– except this year — mater­nity leave) pro­duces an annual tri­umph.  It’s a York insti­tu­tion.  Every year, as the lights go down, the glit­ter ball high above the aud­it­or­ium spins, and the band strikes up with “We’re all bab­bies, we’re all bairns” I settle back in my seat know­ing I’m going to spend the next two hours in utter enjoyment.

[OK Ber­wick — does that earn me a bottle of Newcy Brown?]