you're a hot dog

[jawnbc]

Being married to the English™ sometimes leads to an intercultural experience. This year included my very first Christmas pantomime. Panto in the UK features garishly fab costumes, patently po-mo narratives, cross dressing , former B-list celebrities learning about humility ("Don't you know who I am? Well, by asking the very question isn't the answer obvious?" and more camp than a national park. The Hongcouver version features all this less the celebrities. Unless the squeeze of founder of our local cub club qualifies. In drag, of course (he was fab).

Aladdin featured a trucculent young woman with a camel toe as the lead. Or as my friend Angus so eloquently put it "Aladdin has a vagina: I know I've seen it." She performed admirably until someone decided to have to nice amateur teen actresses singing "A Whole New World". The entire audience shuddered at the first key change...and exercised great restraint thereafter.

In panto the audience is compelled to participate. Characters often pose questions to the audience ("Should I give him the lamp? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), stand innocently as something really bad creeps up from behind ("look behiiiiind you! look behind you!!!!!!"), or bring audience members up on stage. At one point my pal Winnie's partner James broke the cardinal rule of drag queen interaction: never avert your eyes. Because if you do, said drag queen will fixate on you: instead, smile directly at them with a "sure I'd love to share the spotlight with you" smile. Drag queens work alone and will find someone more compliant. This drag queen was great: at one point one of the kids brought on stage said "you're wearing a dress," to which the DQ replied "how clever of you to notice." In a way that didn't humiliate the child and made everyone laugh.

High culture it wasn't, but whatever the production lacked in polish it made up in spirit. Will we go again next year? We'll see. When I asked querrelle if he'd ever gone to panto growing up he said "No...well, maybe once with a school group."

Comments

[gfrancie.livejournal.com]

Panto absolutely confused me initially. I was wondering "What.the.heck."
My Mother in law took my nephew to a panto at christmas time and he enjoyed it (he is seven) and it seems to be kind of a classic experience.
But yeah...you got it.
Have you ever seen Jam and Jerusalem? There was a christmas special where they put on a Panto and it was a scream to watch.

[jawnbc]

I've not!