The strains of Queen’s Somebody to Love fill the rehearsal space in the attic of Huddersfield’s Lawrence Batley Theatre.
“I’ll be singing it my sleep,” says Joyce Branagh, director of the theatre’s first professional panto, Cinderella. It’s not the first time that day she’s heard the classic rock song – and it won’t be the last.
Intensive rehearsals for the panto, which opened on Friday, December 9, began just three weeks before the first performance. In that short time the multi-talented cast had to learn the songs, dance routines and script, then put it all together.
On the day I drop in to see how things are going, they’re running through entire routines, belting out Somebody to Love, and laughing a lot. There’s an easy camaraderie among the cast, something that pleases Joyce.
As she explains: “I’ve got a lot of very fine people in the rehearsal room and part of my job is to create an atmosphere that allows them to chip in with ideas. If it’s all just my ideas, then, no matter however brilliant I might be, I’m not going to think of everything. You need input from the cast.”
Cinderella is Joyce’s eighth full panto, so she knows what she’s talking about. And right from the start she promised audiences a panto – not a Christmas show – with slapstick and jokes, singalong songs and lots of audience interaction.
She understands that panto doesn’t appeal to all, but says: “I think there are people who have seen bad panto and get a snooty thing about it, about it being trashy. But, if you get it right, it’s funny, full of foot-tapping songs and audience participation.
“I want people to come along who don’t think they are into it and discover that it’s more fun than you might think.”
Instead of blowing the budget by buying in one big name from television, who then has to appear in every scene, the LBT production has a cast of good all-rounders with stage and TV credits to tell the familiar rags to rich story in a traditional panto way. The script has been written by Andrew Pollard, who has collaborated with Joyce on other festive shows.
Taking the title role is 27-year-old Nisa Cole from Manchester, who has also worked with Joyce before. Nisa recently appeared in the BBC drama Moonstone, which was filmed in North Yorkshire. Taking a break from rehearsals she says that although she’s a Lancashire lass she has decided that the Lawrence Batley Cinderella should have a Yorkshire accent.
Nisa likes doing accents. It was her ‘thing’ when she was a child. Even at primary school she was entertaining her class by doing voices. But she was 14 before her real interest in acting began.
A high school teacher encouraged her to audition for the National Youth Theatre, where she worked with Huddersfield-born actor Danny Kirrane, and she appeared at the Bolton Octagon in Meet the Mukherjees while taking her A-levels. She explains that fellow actor Roxy Shahidi, from Emmerdale, took her under her wing and asked if there were any parts going for a mixed-race girl. Nisa fit the bill perfectly – her mum is Jamaican and her dad is part Welsh.
She also did a year with Contact Theatre’s Young Company in Manchester, but she was perhaps best known for landing a part in the BBC drama series Waterloo Road, in which she played pupil Amy Porter.
Nisa, it turns out, is not just a great actress, she can also sing. In fact, all the cast have remarkably strong voices.
And they can move, even within the confines of the rehearsal space, which is marked out to resemble the main stage using coloured tape on the floor. Joyce points to some parallel lines and mimes climbing up a flight of stairs. There’s no doubt that cast members have to use their imaginations – a lot.
Of course, the actors on stage, who will be giving a demanding 12 performances a week, are just one facet of the panto. Rupert Horder, production manager, says preparations began back in January. Costumes, scenery, stage crews, music, lighting... it all had to be planned. And Rupert is the go-to person for all of it. He’s worked at the LBT for 17 years but this is his first panto. “It’s very much a case of a steep learning curve,” he says. But what he learns this year should make for a much easier time next year – the theatre is already planning its second panto in December 2017.
“What people don’t think about is all the backstage effort that goes into it,” he says.
“Take the wardrobe assistant, for example, who has to wash and iron all the clothes. They’re washed after two performances, and they have to keep up with the mending.”
He’s delighted, however, that the show has enlisted the talents of lighting designer Chris Brearley, who works at the theatre and has been ‘doing’ the lights for the Huddersfield Light Opera Company’s own panto every year (it opens in January 2017). “We’re benefitting from all his years in panto,” says Rupert.
Then there’s the housekeeping staff, who have to keep the theatre in pristine condition, even after 440 schoolchildren have enjoyed ice creams and illicit packets of crisps.
“But everyone who works here feels to be part of the panto,” he adds, “We can’t help but hear what goes on in rehearsals and we’re all singing the songs.”
Cinderella is on until December 31. Tickets for some shows have sold out. For details visit www.thelbt.org.uk or call 01484 430528.
