PANTO SEASON: BEHIND THE SCENES - Chaos Theory

Everyone involved in the theatre, at whatever level, knows that rehearsals sometimes go like this - brilliantly, but hilariously, wrong. Tonight is supposed to be a complete run-through of the final Act of the pantomime, but it is fair to say that the foul-up factor is pretty high. It takes approximately four lines for someone to say the wrong line, and thereafter people wander onto the stage from the wrong direction, or at the wrong time, or say the wrong line, at regular intervals.

All of which is to be expected. It is still two months from opening night, give or take a couple of days, so things are bound to go wrong. And it has to be said that some of the mistakes are incredibly funny. A section where the Sheriff's henchmen tie up Maid Marian ends up with, variously, no-one tied up or everyone tied up. For some reason, the line "Scream me up, Scotty" creeps into the script at one point. And only in a Cubbington Players rehearsal would you find actors being confused about which order to recite the names of In The Night Garden characters in.

Then there is the one line which Jim Suther, as Robin Hood, finds himself completely unable to say without lapsing into an Irish accent. It is a perfect example of a situation where a producer, however much they might want to, just can't let something go. No matter how many liberties you take with a story such as Robin Hood, you really can't have Nottinghamshire's biggest hero suddenly transported to somewhere west of Tipperary.

Of course, come January 29th and the opening night, all of this will have been put right. Every production goes through phases where it appears that it might never be ready for public viewing, and yet they all make it to the first night in the end (whether some should have been allowed to do that is another matter altogether). Everyone involved in this pantomime knows that there is a long way to go and a lot of hard work to do before they reach that point. Sometimes, though, it is just a shame that you can't leave the mistakes in for a wider audience to see.

• Cubbington Players will be performing excerpts from Robin Hood live on BBC Radio Coventry & Warwickshire this Wednesday, 9th December, between 7.20am and 9am

 

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