WEBF Panto Profile: Writer, director and actor Andrew Ryan
Photo credit: Paul Coltas
It’s time for our third Panto Profile for this year, Besties, and yes it is still panto season in lots of places! Writer, director and Dame supreme Andrew Ryan is appearing again at Birmingham Hippodrome, where Robin Hood runs till 1 February. We caught up with him before a packed house for a January matinee, and asked him how he got started in pantomime.
“I was Assistant Stage Manager at the Kenneth More Theatre, Ilford, and I played someone called Igor in Snow White – and had no lines.” After that, it was a variety of comic roles at theatres from Swansea to Stockport, before a return to Ilford to play Wishee Washee in Aladdin. The following year, the actor cast as Dame couldn’t appear, and Andrew took on the role. “The show in Ilford was always written around the Dame. So I thought, well, I'll have a bit of that. And that was it.” He’s now played Dame for 35 years, including nine seasons at Birmingham Hippodrome, where he can be found this year, although he’s also played Dame many times at venues like Sheffield and Nottingham too. “I'm always surprised that they remember me, but they do. Yes, yes. But the local audiences know their regular performers.”
We asked Andrew about the first pantos he saw as a child. “I grew up in Bradford so it would be at the Alhambra. I think I saw Bobby Bennett, and Barbara Windsor there, and we went to Leeds Grand where it was often Dick Emery or Harry Worth. And I saw Lesley Manville play Cinderella there, I remember her singing in a front cloth scene.” Asked who have been his influences as a Dame, he mentions some more familiar names. “John Inman certainly, I thought he was a great actor, and his Dame was a proper character. And Les Dawson, and I saw Jack Tripp, and then there was Molly Sugden, she had all the elements of a Dame; the wig, the timing, and she was the butt of the joke.”
We asked Andrew how panto has changed during his career. He explained that it depends who you work for, as some companies build their shows around the Dame, others around the comic and some focus on the story. He has also seen the shows get more advanced technically, with lots of special effects. Are there are Dame roles he would still like to play, we wondered? “I’d like to play Mother Goose, that’s the one, isn’t it? But it’s not done very often, perhaps because it’s not been touched by the hand of Disney.” Andrew also admitted he would love the chance to play the Baddie one day, perhaps a female one like a Wicked Queen, or one of the traditional roles like King Rat or Abanazer.
Andrew is not just a performer, he directs too, and before he opened as Henrietta Hood in Birmingham, he could be found in Woking, directing Lesley Joseph and Rob Rinder in Snow White. As a director, he sees his role as being there to keep the story in mind. “However slight the story may be, those dramatic moments have to happen, whether it’s biting the apple in Snow White or tearing up the ball tickets in Cinderella. And it should just flow and keep going, it's like almost like a runaway train.” Although Andrew enjoys the responsibility that comes with being the director, he also breathes a sigh of relief when he steps back into his Dame shoes. “Hopefully I turn up knowing my lines, I’ve learnt my songs, and I'm not a bother to the director. That's always my aim. I always hope I can be that person when I get here.” We’re sure the people of Birmingham will be welcoming Andrew Ryan back to the Hippodrome for many years to come.