PANTO SEASON: BEHIND THE SCENES - Second Rehearsal

Pantomimes are, at heart, about the battle between good and evil. The idea is, of course, that evil appears to be triumphing right until the very end, when the hero rides in and saves the day, gets the girl and overpowers (but never kills) the baddies.

This means that, throughout the course of any script, there are a number of skirmishes between the bad guys and the good ones. Some of these are verbal - often when the real villain and the heroine meet - and some are physical. On any stage, and particularly on the small ones that amateur companies tend to perform on, these have to be plotted and rehearsed very carefully in order to avoid injury to either actor or audience.

This week, disaster struck as Cubbington Players rehearsed one such scene. The script called for Barry West, playing one of the Sheriff of Nottingham's henchmen, to push Ken Beer across the stage, only for Ken to slip back past him and reverse their positions. The first time they tried it, it worked fine. The second, Ken's foot seemed to catch on the carpet of the rehearsal room and he fell heavily to the ground.

For a moment, there was nothing but stillness. Then, as Ken remained silent and unmoving on the ground, the cast and producers made their way over to him. Eventually, he responded to them calling his name, announcing that he was bleeding.

Bleeding he certainly was. The impact had opened up a cut above his left eye which was oozing blood into the carpet. A first aid box was produced and a temporary bandage applied, but poor Ken ended up with two stitches, some bruising and several hours wasted at A&E.*

Understandably, this cast rather a large cloud over what was a pretty good rehearsal. The most surprising thing was how, suddenly, characters began to come to life. Even at the first rehearsal last week there was a sense that people were saying, rather than acting, their lines. Now it was clear just how good some of these actors are, as perfectly ordinary people became thoroughly nasty, or simpletons, or just very silly indeed. It was fascinating to watch and, at the same time, makes you wonder just how good things will be in three months' time.

*Cubbington Players have asked us to make clear that injuries in rehearsal are rare and that, in fact, there have only been two other instances in the last thirty years, both of which happened to people who were building the set rather than actors.