Page 252 - Demo

248walked up to the front of the stage and made my opening frightening speech which of course produced lots of boos from the audience. It also cleared the front bench as the little children fled to the back. They slowly came back in time but I realised that I could not be too scarry. Andrew Wood eventually built a proper stage for us that we could get into the hall albeit with some difficulty as it was very heavy. We now had wings that we could safely stand in. The lighting box was bolted to the ceiling. Ben did the lighting when he was old enough. That meant that he had to get into the box before people came in and the seating was laid out. He used to take a pot noodle and a flask of hot water for the interval. The smell came as a bit of a surprise to the audience. One of the things that we became known for was the special effects. A flyingbench in Aladdin powered by tractor hydraulics. A pumpkin exploding into a carriage in Cinderella. Geoff was the genius behind these and many others.There were a lot of egos to cope with during rehearsals and also sometimes in performances when some people tried to blame any errors that they made onto someone else. There was one cast member that several of the cast did not like being on stage with but I did not mine. My character usually gave me some latitude with the script to fight back. One of the features of the panto was that to be in it you had to live in Tholthorpe. That meant that we did not have to audition and all those invited to perform got a part and if they were lucky a song. Most of us could not sing but enthusiasm made up for a lack of talent. The music was initially by Sue Smith with a piano but that changed to Eileen Robinson on organ for many years. Eventually Graeme introduced taped music that was very good but did mean that the singer had to keep in time with it. Eileen could adjust her speed of playing if need be. To begin with we just did one or 2 performances, but it eventually became so popular that we did Thursday, Friday nights and then 2 performances on the Saturday. This was repeated over 2 weekends. With a lively audience it was