ADC Theatre, Cambridge
Tuesday 26 November - Saturday 7 December 1996

Sleeping Beauty

A Footlights/ADC Pantomime written by Richard Ayoade and John Oliver

I can't remember the name of the first show I ever auditioned for in Cambridge, but I know that, although I didn't get into the cast, the first round of auditions - which I passed - went really well for me, and was taken by a guy called Simon Godwin, whose direction impressed me, although he wasn't directing the show in question. At this point, I never had any intention of joining Footlights because the idea of trying to convince people I was funny - except as a comic actor - was daunting.

However, by the end of my first year, I had done a couple of one-night Footlights shows, and when I found out that the pantomime at the start of second year was to be directed by Simon Godwin, I thought I had at least a chance. I went for it and ended up being cast in a major role - the Prince (officially Prince Charming, who should strictly speaking be in Cinderella rather than Sleeping Beauty but accuracy was never much in demand when it came to Footlights pantos).

Sleeping Beauty

I'm going to put next to nothing of the script here, because the rights to it are owned jointly by Footlights, Richard and John; and I suspect the latter two might be of the (misguided) opinion that their old material won't stand up to their present standards.

Allow me, however, to say that the script is a damn good one. The jokes are inventive, with lines that are silly, clever, surreal, and that just plain sound good (as a writer, I can say those are often more satisfying to come up with than the more obviously funny ones). One example of the surreal ones is the resistance movement whose leader keeps adjoining appropriate words like 'Guatemala' and 'Chairman Mao' to the end of sentences. Then there's the Court Light Entertainers, "with 'light' referring to the amount of entertainment you'll receive", the uninterested Vicar, and the Enchanted Forest whose trees revolve to become panels for a gameshow, as Abba's Dancing Queen plays.

I guess it's fair to say that the best performance, pretty much night after night, came from Desmond O'Connor as the Evil Fairy. Gleefully dragging it to the hilt, Des gave a commanding performance of what was good material from Ayoade and Oliver. One thing obvious from working with Des - in this panto and as a writer for the subsequent Spring's revue, Up For It!, which Des directed - was that he was a very good improviser. The very best example of this came on something like the last performance of the show, when Des' Evil Fairy, obsessed with graphs and charts showing how well her evil was doing, had to admit, "The bottom's fallen out of my evil." Des then added, "Still, it's better than having something evil fall out of your bottom."

My face was turned away from the audience at this point in the show, so my hysterics were hidden. Other members of the cast were less fortunate.

Another memorable night, though less happily so, was when a bunch of kids sat at the back of the theatre and chatted and heckled their way through the first half. Full credit to the cast for refusing to be put off, but by the interval we agreed this was affecting the enjoyment of the rest of the audience. Richard Ayoade was particularly keen to get back on them, and told us he was going to respond to the next interruption with, "Oh, you've got so much to look forward to - like puberty." Bizarrely, John Oliver pinched that line before Richard could say it, though other measures were taken like Des picking up a gun recently used to 'shoot the messenger' and brandishing it at the back rows, saying, "Right, now where are those little bastards?".

Thoughts on my performance in Sleeping Beauty

I think I did a good job. I know I disagreed a fair bit with some of the direction I was given, and I think I actually ditched some of it as soon as the run of the show began. Bits I'm particularly proud of, I suppose, are the Tony Bennett style I took to singing one song, which consisted therefore of me adding 'ah' onto the end of some lines; and a moment when I was supposed to be under some spell, and a load of young kids in the audience were calling out, anxiously, for me to wake up, but I managed to keep a straight face and just gaze around, zombified.

I'm not quite sure where my approach to the character came from. It was a very sincere, 'man of the people', yet naive persona. I can't think what the influences may have been; he doesn't remind me of anyone in particular.

We got some good press in the Cambridge Evening News, and Footlights' favourite reporter Alan Kersey described me as "suitably inept as well as being fairly handsome", which was a delight to me because I had always considered myself plain at best.

Acting was made difficult by the thin material of the shoes which always threatened to slip off my feet or just disintegrate, and the glorious combination of sequined codpiece, tights and a cloak. The Prince actually dies at the end of this pantomime (well, in our version), and I had to take tremendous care, when I collapsed, to land in a particular way and with my cloak wrapped over me - the sequined codpiece covered the front, but as for my rear, there were only tights and perhaps that might not have been the best image to present to the front few rows...

- written January 24, 2004

Footlights pantomimes in general

How to describe 'pantomime' to a stranger? It's a very British (perhaps only English) style of theatre, usually featuring a fairy story of sorts. The show tends to require elaborate sets and costumes, and the whole thing is played very much larger than life and also primarily to the audience. There are stock audience responses generally expected; any unhappy characters must be 'ahhh'ed, any evil character must be 'boo'ed; at some point one character will wonder where someone concealed is, prompting the audience response "He's behind you!" and another character will protest "Oh, no it isn't" to something, getting the audience to respond, "Oh, yes it IS!" and repeating this disagreement any number of times. The lead young male is quite often played by a woman, and the maternal figure often by a man (called 'drag' acting). There are most likely songs, and puffs of smoke as magical characters vanish and appear, and good always triumphs. Pantos go down best with kids.

Footlights tend to poke a bit of fun at pantomimes. They mess around, throw in clever jokes and surreal references. It's difficult, and they have to do something different, because the audience is largely not children, and the performers are more or less the same age. Sometimes it will be done gently, like Sleeping Beauty. This is probably the best approach; they still get kids coming to the shows and no one likes a show being sarcastic at such an easy target. Richard Ayoade and John Oliver were obviously not keen on writing a pantomime when it came to the next year, and their Grimm Fairy Tales was more of a look at the world of motion pictures; splitting the audience response down the middle quite a bit.

I wasn't in this one much, but had a few cameos. Let me see... I was a 'tree' in the enchanted forest, which was initially some sort of dig at drama school workshop acting, with the forest comprising 'actors' in black clothes, stretching. But then it got warped somewhere along the line, and one of us - perhaps Adrian Sturges, perhaps Richard Ayoade, maybe even me, I'm not sure... I seem to recall this wasn't in the original script (no, it isn't, I've just checked) - started us turning round and, with pipes in our mouths (well, Adrian, Richard and I had pipes), singing 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'... very surreal. Good fun.

My other stuff included playing TeenWolf's dad (very camp American accent; I was actually imitating something I'd once seen Richard Ayoade do, because I knew he'd written the script and probably therefore had that voice in mind), playing a puppeteer who, in the course of the run, engaged in an improvised war of words with John Oliver's Producer character (we added bits almost every night and I ended up with the threat "Don't touch that phone - I know where you live"), a joke ballet duet with Richard (dancing behind a real ballet dancer whose inclusion Richard thought pointless and so, a short way into the run of the show, asked me to join him in spoofing), and two bits of lip syncing. A few of us did these short bits of lip syncing to famous songs; my two were Bing Crosby-a-like (pipe and golf sweater) to Chattanooga Choo-Choo and Maurice Chevalier (raincoat and large gestures) to D'excellents Français (I think). The latter was especially successful; sometimes it would get a huge laugh before I'd started lip syncing, because I opened with a dramatic arm-flinging. One friend told me he almost wet himself during that bit, a former Footlights vice-president said he could have watched an hour of me lip-syncing, and strangers came up to me about town to congratulate me on it. I would invariably bump into Adrian Sturges in the wings at some point later in the show and he would say, "You milked your lip-syncs!".

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Overview

About this version of Sleeping Beauty

Thoughts on my performance as the Prince

Footlights Pantomimes in general

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Harry Porter