A proper panto
I’ve always loved the Hackney Empire. It’s a lovely theatre, but it’s the audiences thatmake it special.
When I went to the double bill Cavalleria Rusticana & Pagliacci there, my evening was made by the two little old ladies in front of me discussing the plots of operas. Both of them had the kind of Cockney accent the casting director of East Enders would kill for, and neither of them can have been much under eighty.
“This is the one where they get buried alive, isn’t it?” said one.
A supercilious grin had just begin to display itself on my features when the other one answered her.
“Don’t be stupid,” she said. “Everyone knows that’s Verdi’s Aida. You ought to know better.”
Anyway… if you want to see proper panto, then this is where you ought to come. Not just because the acting and singing will be good, and the show will be spectacular, but because the audience can do panto properly – booing and hissing in all the right places, and joining in with gusto. (Since the Empire was in fact an old-style Music Hall, that’s taking it right back to its roots, I reckon.)
It’s Mother Goose this year, with Clive Rowe as the pantomime Dame – he’s returning to the Hackney Empire having been a dame quite a few times by now – and a cast including Sharon D Clarke from Holby City and Last Choir Standing, Tameka Empson and Kat B. It’s all put together by the same team responsible for last year’s Dick Whittington, and has plenty of original songs as well as a strong play with witty dialogue. All this and dancing skeletons too!
Where: Hackney Empire, Mare Street, Hackney
When: till 10th January 2009, see website for times
Photo credit: Elana Centor on Flickr
Comments Off