Panto launch: ROBIN HOOD at New Wimbledon Theatre
Photo credit: Natalia Micic
Back in October, we headed to New Wimbledon Theatre for the launch of this year’s panto: Robin Hood: the Magical Panto Adventure, starring Ashley Banjo and Diversity.
We asked Ashley how many pantos they’ve done now; “This is our ninth,” he said. Asked about his favourite part of panto, fellow Diversity member Jordan was clear: “Getting the script and then going to the rehearsals, it’s a lot of fun making the show. And then the run in general, it’s such a tradition for so many people and we have a lot of fun doing it.” Lauren Hampton plays Maid Marion opposite Ash as Robin Hood, and she is very strict about her pre-show rituals. “I sing through a song every time, even if it’s a two show day. And I crack every bone in my body!” Having recently starred in The Great Gatsby, Lauren is looking forward to playing this iconic figure.
Also starring in the panto is comedy magician Pete Firman, seen in four pantos at Wimbledon and a local favourite. He’s playing Will Scarlett, and it’s his first appearance in Robin Hood: “I'm looking forward to getting stuck into this one, actually, because it's a bit different.” Like so many panto performers, Pete grew up going to his local panto. “I'm from Middlesborough and we went to our local theatre in Darlington. I saw all of the pantomime big hitters there, you know, Little and Large, the Chuckle Brothers and the Krankies. It was a big family thing for us to go to go to pantomime, so I was exposed to it from quite a young age.”
Every panto has to have a baddie, and as the Sheriff of Nottingham, Wimbledon have cast panto royalty: Steve Arnott, veteran of many pantos, especially in his native North-East. Not that all baddies are the same of course: “I played one in the reinvented Goldilocks, Baron Von Winklebotham, who's the Germanic owner of a rival circus. Apart from the accent, I wore a prosthetic nose and I had warts on my face. It was nice to do because I like hiding behind a mask.” Steve has played Sheriff of Nottingham before, some years ago. He also, at least till this year, has spent much of his year doing a different kind of pantomime work: painting and restoring the scenery that travels around the country. He must be the only performer who also does this – and he knows he will be appearing in front of his own handiwork at Wimbledon this year. Scenic painting is a very skilled art – and perhaps a threatened one with the move to printed and digital scenery. But the sets for Wimbledon this year are all the work of skilled artists like Steve.
Steve has another reason to be pleased to be playing panto in Wimbledon for the first time. “When I was a little boy, we’re going back into history now, in the 1960s, the BBC used to televise a panto from this very theatre on Christmas Day. It wasn't the pantomime that was running at this particular theatre at the time, it was a new company that was especially rehearsed and you had stars like Norman Wisdom playing the lead. So this theatre is quite special, and I never thought that I'd get to play here at last.”
