Written by Katie Duncan, for her father - Blue Peter daredevil Peter Duncan - to perform, there is clearly a lot to be said for a man in a dress (Peter, not Katie) and we are brilliantly drawn in and captivated by the presentation of this beautiful yet impactful and poignant piece. With a running time of 70 minutes, this space is the perfect setting for such an intimate, fringe-esque, tale of a veteran pantomime dame named Ronald Roy Humphrey who, whilst in the dressing room of the final(?) night of the run of 'Jack And The Beanstalk', opens the floodgates and expresses some rather raw insights into his background. He doesn’t look much without all the glamour of make-up and showbiz. From his roots as side-kick to his abusive (mainly in a disciplinary way), single-parent father, who was also a Music Hall performer in many a seaside town; to his struggles of the strain and burden of life in The Arts and the demands/attention of ‘fans’, this covers it all and can only be this powerful, as a one-man show.
With a minimal yet well-thought out set, of the dressing table and mirror adorned with bulbs, a props basket/trunk with all sorts in - including a ukelele - and a costume rail where hung an array of panto dame dresses and wigs...and Punch and Judy puppets. Described in the literature as ‘[exposing] the fragile creature beneath the make-up’, Ron/Peter describes it as armour: “my warpaint. The battle out there...it’s all I’ve ever known”, which can easily be empathised with, in the presence of performers (from Saddleworth Players present in the audience), tonight and further afield.
During the rare post-show Q&A, where we had the pleasure of meeting the writer, questions were asked about the reason for the show and its preparations. We were informed that Duncam’s family were performers too and his mother had worked with Danny LaRue (one of the dresses - gold - is in the rail on set, as are the job lot that Duncan bought from somewhere, some years ago). Although Katie and Peter Duncan both have limited experience and insight into being a pantomime dame, the story stands up, probably with the great help of director, Ian Talbot, however Duncan was dame in his first Pantomime in Poole, last year. This offers a slight biographical insight.
Included in the show is reference to one Dan Leno (George Wild Galvin) who was a pantomime dame, actor and comedian in the late Victorian era, and a painting of him which is owned by Duncan. With the art of Pantomime moving from just a festive show at Christmas time to be used by producers as a mechanism to draw crowds at Easter too, this show is instrumental in affirming the roots or the art and celebrating that the efforts of performers, in lighthearted pantomime and all other forms, should be recognised all year round, not to mention the struggles that they evidently face and hide away. I brought up on the Q&A that most pantomime dames over the years, be it to draw in the crowds or be versatile at ad-libding, have been comedians and that I always suspected that comedians were so in order to suppress their own insecurities. We are always told not to take ourselves too seriously and what better way to do that than to have others laugh at/with us.
In short, this show is great! We wish Katie Duncan well in her future writing (we hear she has already finished her second piece) and wish Peter Duncan good luck in his next venture - Million Dollar Quartet, in India before a tour here.
The show now heads to Bury St Edmunds (19th & 20th), before The Pomegranate in Chesterfield (23rd) and Basingstoke's Haymarket (5th March)
Reviewer - John Kristof
on - 15/2/20
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