Look, I know you’re taken aback. We haven’t had our summer election yet. The undecided is trying hard to work out who not to vote for, the football is still rolling on. But those are reasons why we need summer panto, the shared experience of being with an audience who can sit back for an hour and laugh, mercifully, at the world around us.
Thankfully, Oran Mor’s Mumbelina is set to open, written by ace panto creator Johnny McKnight and directed by Darren Brownlie. Brownlie is of course a panto veteran, having graced the stage of the Tron Theatre for years playing the likes of Snow Queens before being lured to the King’s Theatre. (This year the Paisley-born actor will play Tinkerbelle in Peter Pan.)
But now Brownlie, a River City regular, is running the show, for the first time. How does it feel?
“Well, I’ve changed overnight,” he says, laughing. “I’m now on a huge power trip, telling people what to do, when to do it!”
Has this desire for power being lurking, desperate to emerge? His voice drops closer to a serious level. “When you are acting for so long you find your feet, you know your process and all of that. There are times (when directing) I’m tempted to say, ‘Why don’t you say the line this way . . .’ but I have to remember we’ve employed these actors to say a line how they would do it, not how I would do it.”
Brownlie adds; “What I feel is so important is that the actor’s feel safe. Sometimes a director will have a vision of what they want and then force that onto an actor. But it may not sit. What I try to do is listen to their ideas, and allow them to show what they can do.”
Darren Brownlie trained originally as a dancer and a choreographer. “I had to learn that yes, I could show someone what to do, but when an actor isn’t body-trained in that way it’s sometimes better to watch and see what they do. It’s the same with acting.” He grins. “I think directing is about cashing in on the actor’s experience, it’s not a dictatorship.”
There is lots of experience to be utilised. This summer’s offering features stalwarts Joyce Falconer, Gail Watson, Michelle Gallagher and George Drennan and ‘the amazing’ newcomer Chloe Hodgson. “They are brilliant. When you cast people like that the director’s job is made so much easier. And as Johnny himself said, ‘Darren, I’ve given you a full-proof script. So, there is nothing can go wrong with it.” He adds, “And the songs are brilliant.”
Is being a first-time panto director a little like a fledgling football manager? Do you take elements of experience from those directors you’ve learned from? “Oh, aye, I’ve taken bits from Johnny, who is a great director, from Jemima Levick, (now artistic director at the Tron) and Andy Arnold (formerly of the Tron). Johnny, for example, is a really physical director and brings in great movement whereas Jemima would analyse the script and make sure the audience gets the message. I can then pass on this sort of experience to those on stage.”
What of the storyline? “Well, I have to say it bears almost no resemblance to Thumbelina, the Hans Christian Anderson tale,” he says, grinning. “It’s about a mammy who isn’t best treated by her kids. It’s really about parents who give up their lives to become parents, and in the process loss their identity. So, we see a woman make a wish (with the wicked amphibian Froggie Mercury) that her life could be bigger than it is, but the bigger the life becomes, the more she shrinks."
Perhaps even smaller than Glasgow City Council’s arts budget.
And of course, the story is a metaphor for realising we should value what we have - but we don’t always know it at the time. It all sounds great. And Brownlie assures the panto will be packed with election topicals, added during the run.
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So, the first-time director need not worry about having a hit on his hands. He’s got a great script, a great cast who know panto intimately . . . does this mean he’s not really needed? He laughs hard. “That’s right. I’ll just say to them, ‘Right, it’s all yours. Come up with a 50-minute show while I go for something to eat – and I’ll come back and watch it!”
He adds, the wide grin still fixed on his face. “I’m loving this job. I love the world. It’s just like being a wee boy in a playground, playing cops and robbers or whatever. I’m the wee boy who refuses to grow up.”
The grin produces a big laugh. “And if it turns out I’m rubbish at directing I’ll just never do it again. Or blame everybody else and say ‘I was just nominated for a CATS award. It couldn’t have been me!’”
Mumbelina, Oran Mor, Glasgow, June 25-July 20
Don’t Miss:
The Traverse Theatre offer up the first part of Strange Town theatre company’s trilogy of ‘Tides’, play set on Portabella Beach. Rachel O’Regan’s It’s Not the End of the World tells of a meteor shower amidst rumours of an apocalypse – and what has to be done. June 19 and 22.
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