3. The Panto Players
1510 Words
Chapter Three
The Panto Players
The best actors aren’t found onstage
Derek was standing centre stage quoting his “all the nice boys love a Mars bar” speech. “Any port in a storm,” Derek shouted in his best Rod Stewart voice.
No one noticed; inspired by last week’s “budget” meeting, the panto players were busy dragging into the hall past panto scenery for revamping. Not an easy feat when the postman—who was in charge of the lighting, scenery, and anything else that required a screwdriver—was sorting the lights, causing flicking on a par with a power cut.
The rehearsals were held in the Community Hall, a run-down building with windows that refused to open but rattled as each car passed, a kitchen with cupboard spaces on par with a caravan, and a floor more lethal than black ice on tarmac.
The postman skidded his ladder across the floor with an “excuse me,” “pardon,” “whoops mind.”
Deloris, poised over her sketchbook, motioned Derek to carry on. She was designing his costume and wanted Derek to move about the stage to get a feel for what would work.
“Go on,” she muttered.
The light flickered off, then back on. “Apologies,” shouted the postman.
“My name is P-p-p . . . posy Nancy, and I often feel quite d-d . . . dancy . . .”
“Is he aware that he actually stutters?” Deloris muttered to Charlie.
Charlie, along with the rest of the cast, watched in an awkward silence as Derek limped a spin, finishing with his back to the audience and a wiggle of his hips.
“A little of what you fancy does you good . . .”
George, with his director’s jacket dramatically slung across his shoulder, was directing the influx of scenery with the flourish of an Italian traffic cop. He stopped mid keep moving gesture, glanced at the stage, and caught Derek breaking into a shoe shuffle.
Derek stopped.
“Poosie? What the hell is a Poosie?” yelled George.
The hall plunged into darkness . . .
Bump; crash.
Shit!
That’ll be the lamp broken.
“I have been thinking we’ll call the dame P-p-p-p . . . poosie Nancy,” said Derek.
“p*****s? What the hell are you on about? And what the frig has happened to the lights?” shouted George.
“Apologies,” shouted the postman.
The spotlight flashed onto Derek; he squinted. “Not p*****s—P-p-p . . . poosie Nancy . . .”
“Speak up, man!” shouted George.
“That’s Robbie Burns’s lover that is,” said the postman from the top of a ladder, mid screw. “Which is also the name of a pub, and for my mind rather a quirky pun.”
“Quirky? Pun? What are you, a critic?”
“The whole world is a critic,” muttered a voice in the corner.
“Aye right,” muttered another.
“And,” said Derek, “P-p-p-p . . . poosie Nancy could have a friend that never appears onstage, called Highland Mary . . .”
“What?” roared George.
“Or was she called Highland Fling?” muttered Derek.
“Let me get this straight: you’re naming a man dressed as a woman after a pub?” said George. “Mid fling?”
“It’s better than Rod Stewart,” said the postman.
“Ridiculous—what man is going to get up onstage and answer to Poosie?” snapped George.
“Well, me,” said Derek.
George bounded onto the stage two steps at a time and cleared his throat. “Enough with the poosies.”
A few chuckled.
“We are here for a meeting.”
“I’m just about to start my speech,” muttered Derek.
“Thank you, Derek.”
“It’s new.”
“Another time, Derek.”
“And my designs,” huffed Deloris. “They don’t come out of thin air you know, I need something to work with.”
Derek nodded.
George sucked in his potbelly. “We are here to discuss the script.” He motioned to Charlie. Charlie walked onto the stage, peered into the dark, and waved with an embarrassed smile.
“Meet our new writer,” said George.
The room fell silent; a few shuffled uncomfortably.
“No offence, Charlie,” said a voice from the back.
“Er, none taken.”
“But what experience has Charlie had of writing a script?”
“George is the main writer,” said Charlie.
“George,” said another, “was a sergeant.”
“Major,” said George.
“And as you’ll see,” said Charlie, passing around his notes, “there are a few humorous bits.”
“You’ll need it,” chipped in the postman. “The last panto died on its arse.”
“We can thank others for that,” said George with a nod in Derek’s direction.
“The last time a script was created ‘from scratch’ it emptied the hall quicker than a fire alarm,” huffed Derek. “Not that many came. I mean what child wants to see Cinderella’s Dirty Dozen?”
A few chuckled.
“A bit of war never hurt anyone,” shouted George.
“A ten-minute rant about the trenches isn’t funny,” said Derek, “even when the actor is in a dress.”
“He has a point,” muttered Deloris.
“We need a proper script,” muttered a voice from the back. “Something funny, not some half-baked rambling from the likes of you two . . . no offence, Charlie.”
“None taken,” muttered Charlie. He stared into the dark as the light flicked on. Five members of the cast stood clutching an extraordinary long d**k Whittington swinging from an even larger beanstalk.
He smiled at the blank faces.
“Why can’t we just use a proper script?” said someone.
“Something amusing,” said another.
“Charlie can be funny, can’t you?” said George. “And who better to write a panto than a lover of jazz?”
“That’s my wife,” muttered Charlie. “I’m more a Smiths man.”
“Who?” said Deloris.
“The Smiths,” said the postman.
“Oh?” said Deloris.
She looked at Charlie and made a mental note to look up the Smiths when she returned home.
Charlie spent the next morning battling the nettles around the entrance of the shed. When he finally entered, two hens charged past him. Charlie skidded, lost his balance, and grabbed hold of the closest thing to hand—a rake—which in turn knocked over a stack of tins, along with the shelf that held the said tins. The shelf and tins crashed to the floor on top of a load of empty boxes.
Francis, who was sure he could hear laughing, shouted, “Have a good trip!”
Charlie scrambled to his feet muttering unmentionables as his head scraped against the brick wall, taking some green sticky stuff along with it.
He swore. This was not how he wanted to spend his Saturday morning, let alone the whole day.
In the end, he spent the whole weekend.
Charlie took the redundant exercise bike to the skip, along with a set of dumbbells and a deflated inflatable something covered in mould. He scrubbed the gas heater clean (in between shooing the hens), bought a new gas cylinder for the heater, and then fired it up on full and watched the only window in the shed slowly fog up.
A hen fluttered by the door and stuck its head through the rusty cat flap. He tossed the remains of a biscuit at her; she clucked as Charlie sighed.
How could he create in a shed with a peculiar smell that even a dozen scented trees could not get rid of?
The hen tentatively stepped through the cat flap. He tossed another biscuit at it . . .
He was just beginning to enjoy himself, getting into his stride as a writer—expanding his horizons, as he liked to put it. He was even looking forward to the next meeting despite the whole Derek thing. Then he came home to find his computer and notes sitting at the top of the stairs and his study looking like an Indian temple. Francis had told Charlie that Daisy—the “vegan” who was known by many to have the coordination of a blind eighty-year-old with Parkinson’s—was moving into the “spare room.”
“But that’s my . . . room,” said Charlie. “My study, how could you just go through everything like that?”
Charlie argued, put up a fight, but when Francis poured her third gin, he knew it was over and he should be at least grateful for Daisy. She had stopped Francis from throwing his notes into the fire and insisted they be kept for Charlie to sort.
He had been pushed out of his spare room by a vegan who looked more like a weightlifter than a lover of tofu. And his wife seemed happier than he could ever remember.
“Daisy has nowhere to go,” she said. “Besides, you can use the shed.”
“It was good enough for Roald Dahl,” said Daisy, sending Francis into hysterics.
Daisy sodding Daisy. She made Francis not only smile but giggle like a schoolgirl. The only time Charlie managed that was falling over a couple of hens into an ancient oil patch. It wasn’t always like that; years ago Francis couldn’t get enough of him.
Later that evening Francis stood in the kitchen as Charlie picked up his laptop at the top of the stairs.
“You know Daisy has a theory,” she shouted.
“So I’ve heard,” muttered Charlie.
He tugged at the extension lead, rolled it up, and placed it on top of his laptop along with his notes.
“How long?” he shouted.
“What?”
Charlie humphed down the stairs. “Is she staying?”
“Err, well, that’s the thing, we have left it open to see how things pan out.”
“Pan out? What does that mean?”
“She said you’d say that.”
He placed his laptop on the work surface. “And what else did she say?”
“That there is more to you than a fine quiche. And I should be wary.”
“Of what,” snapped Charlie, “my shortcrust?”
“No, that you’re much smarter than you seem,” said Francis.
- Writer
