The Panto De-Brief

It’s that time of year again. The soppy and hilarious panto roundup.

For the 3rd year in a row, I returned as musical director to the Gaiety Theatre in the Isle of Man. It was wonderful to work with the amazing Mark Hilton (director) again, and I had a blast working with new choreographer Alex Christian. 

I was also over the moon to reunite with panto sound legend Alex Linney (from ‘Wizard of Oz’ 2022).

This production of ‘Dick Whittington’ was truly a special one. The cast were all lovely and genuine pleasures to work with.

Three ‘joke’ highlights include:

Lemon the neon fish, who lived in the pit for the entirety of the show run and even made a sneaky appearance on ITV News.

The dame’s dressing room being covered in tin foil and wrapping paper.

The crew making up an entire third bucket of ‘slosh’ to throw over the Dame and Idle Jack on the final night.

Now the real musical highlights:

‘River Deep, Mountain High’ - I adored the choreography for this number. Tina Turner is one of my favourite artists, and the trio of solos building up to the final chorus was without a doubt my favourite vocal moment of the show.

‘I Am What I Am’ - It will be no surprise as a drag artist that this is a song I know all too well. I was already excited seeing this number in the show. I was then even more excited to witness the suggestive choreography, and the final bit of joy was having a lovely colla voce piano solo for the opening.

‘Let’s Get Loud’ - Now to be self-indulgent. As well as being one of my all-time favourite panto songs, I got a lovely 8-bar piano solo where I could let rip with all that Latin American rhythm training I did in my undergrad.

Final noteworthy thing: after 3 years… I finally did the big dip.