COME on, if you haven’t booked tickets for a panto this year, you have to ask yourself some serious questions. Am I channelling the spirit of Scrooge (before Marley’s ghost hovered in)? Would I rather stay at home and watch the Covid inquires on television? Or do I not actually like my children?
Now, having accepted the fact that it’s your moral duty to (re)introduce your weans to a world where baddies are beaten and true love conquers all, get online now and look at some of the shows you should consider.
The Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow is under new management but still boasting the cast that’s entertained record audiences over the years. Treasure Island is again relocated to Renfield Street where River City’s Stephen Purdon and Scott Fletcher, Scot Squad and Two Doors Down star Grado, Jack Lester from The Scotts and Elaine MacKenzie Ellis of Rab C Nesbitt and Still Game will feature.
Stand-up star Liam Dolan leads the cast of Treasure Island as Wullie Hawkins.
The storyline? Jim Hawkins has been left a treasure map but will he, his wee brother, Willie and their mammy, Henrietta be able to find the gold before Long John Silver and his pesky pirates, Pucklebum and Pilchard, get their greedy hands on it?
Jim has to follow a set of instructions so simple you’d imagine a Scottish health minister could follow them, but of course there are complications along the way. (Which have nothing to do with an Old Firm football match.)
One of the stars of the show is undoubtedly Grado (real name Graeme Stevely), whose career has rocketed in recent years, from wrestler to actor, and whose deliveries in comedy of manners sitcom Two Doors Down are drier than reheated toast.
Grado, who also stars in comedy Scott Squad and presents a morning show on GO Radio, has achieved success largely because he’s a comedy natural, and prepared to play himself, regardless of consequences. As a result, he is loved. In Two Doors Down for example, his character, Alan, is less than refined, prone to putting his foot in it, and suggests the sensitivity of plate glass. “When I get the script I will show it to my girlfriend and she says, ‘That’s just like something you would do – in fact that is you’,” he says.
READ MORE: Louise McCarthy: ‘I’m going for a miserable Glesga wummin as Scrooge’
“So I feel sorry for Joy [McAvoy, his co-star who plays Michelle] just as much as I feel sorry for my actual girlfriend to be honest. They have an understanding as they each know what the other has to put up with.”
What panto offers is for audiences to see even more of the real, natural Grado. Yes, he may be playing a bumbling pirate – but with a strong essence of the young man from Ayrshire, who is immensely clever but all too willing to reveal his essential daftness.
“I just love it,” he says of panto. “I feel panto is perfect for me. But I have to watch I don’t get out of puff. These dancers are amazing and really fit.”
But surely a professional athlete has an in-built fitness?
“No, man. I’ve not been in a gym since August, 2015. I had a personal trainer for a wee while, but I felt too embarrassed because people recognised me when lifting the wee pink dumbbells.”
If the Pavilion is sticking with classic Scots interpretations of panto characters, Cumbernauld Theatre is looking to add a modern twist with Ugly: A Cinderella Story. Written by Gary McNair, it takes us to a world in which the Fairy Godmother and Ugly Sister must work together to achieve a transformation really worth doing – and discover that true worth is on the inside, not the outside.
READ MORE: Edinburgh Festival announces 2024 theme with more opera
Stuck on the sidelines of someone else’s story, the Ugly Sister is hackit, crabbit and desperate for a change. Across the ballroom, fresh from her success in glowing up Cinderella with a princess-worthy frock and fancy glass slippers, the Fairy Godmother is ready to kick back and enjoy another happy-ever-after. But finding herself stuck at the Wondernauld Christmas Ball, her fairy senses start a-tingling that there’s a wish still to be granted.
Will the Ugly Sister accept the help she needs – or has she been wearing this “ugly” label too long to change?
The panto features Lauren Ellis Steele as Chantelle, Jo Freer as Maw, Laurence Boothman as the Prince and Fairy Godmother, and Eva Beattie making her professional stage debut as Cinderella.
Ugly: A Cinderella Story, runs at Lanternhouse Main Auditorium, Cumbernauld until December 30.
Don’t Miss
A slightly more traditional take on the Cinderella story can be found at the Gaiety Theatre in Ayr (until January 7) thanks to writing duo Ken Alexander and Fraser Boyle. In it, Cinders has to contend with her new “family”, the McClatchys, who have seen off her dad and gone through the family fortune like a Lottery win.
Meanwhile, her stepmother, Lady Loco McClatchy, is a vile, vain and selfish woman – and most of that has rubbed off on her two spoiled daughters, Vera Verscratchy McLatchy and Annie Amanny McLatchy, with their love of all things designer.
Now, Cinderella isn’t a material girl at all, but when she hears of a royal ball for the returning Prince Louis she agrees to glam up for the night. To what end?
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