Put the big business pantomime behind you

The presence in Britain of Henry Winkler and Patrick Duffy shows just how much of a money-spinner pantomime has become. Is it time to get back to basics?

Hampsthwaite pantomime
Hot ticket... The Hampsthwaite village pantomime. Photograph: Alfred Hickling

Though it's been around for centuries, pantomime has always been subject to prevailing trends. A couple of years ago it was classical actors such as Sir Ian McKellen and Simon Callow determined to unleash their inner dame. This year the fashion seems to be for unemployed American TV icons: Patrick (Bobby Ewing) Duffy; Henry (the Fonz) Winkler... where are they now? The answer is, they're appearing in panto at Woking and Wimbledon respectively.

You do wonder quite what these former legends think they're letting themselves in for - both actors admit to having no idea of what British pantomime entails, so the first flying plate of custard is going to come as something of a shock, while Duffy was reportedly quite put out to discover that Woking was 40 miles from London's West End. Yet even fallen stars of this calibre don't come for peanuts, and their presence signifies what a major, money-spinning enterprise commercial panto has become. Between them, the two major pantomime production companies, Qdos and First Family Entertainment (the hiss-and-boo wing of the enormous entertainment and media conglomerate Clear Channel) promote 30-odd variations of the same theme in 1500-plus seat venues across the country. These shows cost anything up to half-a-million pounds, and recoup their costs by rolling on to the next enormo-auditorium the following year. All of this brings seasonal joy to a great many people, particularly the accountants. But it does leave you wondering where the soul of pantomime has gone.

As with most things that appear to have gone missing, however, if you look for them hard enough they may turn out to be right under your nose. I encountered a small revelation this year at the Memorial Hall, Hampsthwaite, a North Yorkshire village outside Harrogate. A friend had recently moved there and, in order to get to know people, joined the local amateur dramatic society. Following a walk-on part for her debut, she accelerated up the ranks to land the plum role of Bo Peep in the annual pantomime. Did we want to come along? "Oh yes, we do" said my wife. "Oh no, we don't" I grumbled, slightly less than enthused by the prospect of an evening's amateur dramatics in a village hall.

What I hadn't realised was just how much of a hot ticket it turned out to be. The Hampsthwaite panto regularly sells-out the 220 capacity Memorial Hall, and on the last night there were disappointed villagers clamouring for returns, even though most of them had seen the show already. There was a thrill of anticipation quite unlike anything you find in a regular auditorium, fostered by the fact that everybody in the audience knew everyone else, as well as all the people on stage.

And as soon as the curtains parted on an extremely well-choreographed dance against an excellently painted woodland scene it was immediately apparent that these non-professionals had their act together.

The acting was great, the singing wasn't bad, and the pyrotechnic effects were incredible - though we later discovered that a highly convincing piece of slapstick business with a fire extinguisher had been for real. Yet the script managed to be steeped in pantomime tradition, whilst also being completely original. The Players don't pull a generic panto off the shelf, but devise their own over the summer. No writer is credited as the bulk of the material is made up in the pub. And the best gags are invariably the worst: the Dame's idiot son was played by a sailor whose call-and-response entrance line was "anchor's away", to which the audience had to shout 'way anchor" (think about it).

Most importantly, the players take the business of panto extremely seriously - the 23-year-old director, Phil Scruton, is a panto scholar who can converse at length on the history of the genre and its routines. And though we think of pantomime as the last surviving strand of music hall, its roots go back much further to medieval customs and morality plays. The villain accordingly appears stage left - the 'sinister" side, associated with evil - while the good fairy always stands to the right. And there remains a tradition in the wings whereby actors about to go on stage will say 'see you on the green', a reference to where village entertainments were originally staged.

Everyone involved, particularly the behind-the-scenes team, did an outstanding job; and you can't help but feel that the infectious fun of the Hampsthwaite panto was down to the fact that everyone involved was doing it for love rather than money. You won't find any under-whelming celebrities propping up the bill in Hampsthwaite because in a community of this size it's more of a thrill to see the man who runs the post office in a ridiculous wig than some obscure, former TV personality that few children in the audience will even recognise. As we filed out, my prejudices about amateur pantomime thoroughly re-arranged, I reflected on the idea that pantomime makes most sense when it returns to its origins as a village celebration. Or perhaps there are some places where it never actually left.