Fine Time promised

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OLDHAM Coliseum’s pantomime has all the right ingredients to be a Christmas 
cracker . . . Oh yes it has!

Due to open on Saturday (November 21), the age-old story of “Mother Goose”
brings the moral that beauty and wealth can’t buy happiness.

But the message is cloaked beneath a show which promises a truly fun night, 
with a strong cast led by veteran dame, Fine Time Fontayne, stacks of music and dancing, and gags sure to bring a titter from the Oldham audience Rehearsals are well under way for the seven cast members, who have a relatively long four weeks to tweak their performance to perfection.

Fine Time, also known as Ian Crossley, is no stranger to the Coliseum, and played Widow Twankey last year in “Aladdin.”

A seasoned dame, Mother Goose will be the 58-year-old’s 11th dame role, and he 
said he is just as excited now as he was the first time.

“To the audience, panto looks easy and relaxed, but it is one of the most difficult things to pull off, and takes highly skilled singers, dancers and actors to do it,” he explained.

“Much of it seems ad lib, but, just like any other play, if you don’t know your lines you are lumbered. “It takes exactly the same skills as a Shakespeare play — you have to talk to the audience, play naturalistic parts and have the knack of telling jokes.”

Pantomime is a great way of involving the audience. Children are encouraged to join in, adults revel in being able to hiss and boo to their hearts content, and there are plenty of jokes to entertain the youngest to the oldest.

“Some of the jokes go right over the heads of children, and it’s fun to see them laughing an innuendoes when they have no idea what they are laughing at,” said Fine Time.
Pantos owe their success to the sprinkling of ingredients — from the handsome hero and beautiful princess, to the impish boy and the comic who are swept along in an adventure which is “made safe” by the matriarch — the dame who makes sure there is always a happy ending.

Coliseum panto first-timers, Nicola Evans, who plays Jill, and Linzi Matthews, who plays Fairy Feather, are just as keen to get out on stage to entertain. Linzi first appeared in panto alongside Tom O’Connor at the Liverpool Empire Theatre 28 years ago.

She said: “Panto, for me, is a far more complex process than a lot of straight plays.
“Everything has to look natural and there is so much going on on stage that unless everything is timed to perfection the audience is focused on the wrong thing and the gags just don’t work.

“Timing is key to success. If the audience don’t know where to focus, it will fail, but if you get it right it’s brilliant.” Mother Goose is Nicole’s first professional panto and after getting stuck into rehearsals she said: “I’m really enjoying it.”

She was surprised at the amount of choreography, saying: “You have to be aware of what everyone else is doing - it’s almost like a dance with a specific timing and beat.”
It didn’t take her long to realise she would need to call on all her acting skills to make her part work.

“I thought it was going to be easier,” she said. “To watch panto, the cast seem to have such a great time, almost as if everything is made up on the spot.

“The thing I enjoy most about live theatre is the spontaneity, and I love that every show will be different. “If part of the set falls you can’t just pretend it hasn’t happened, and working with children is great, it keeps you alive,” said Nicole.