Feature: Pantomime - The three-minute show, November 26 to New Year’s Eve at Covent Garden Piazza
Published: 25 November, 2010
by DAN CARRIER
IT is sold to us as a highlight of the Christmas season, but, let’s be honest, pantomimes are fidget-inducing.
Two and a half hours of Dick Whittington or Aladdin, with a barely famous star in drag is about as much fun as stuffing the turkey.
But perhaps the answer is to pay lip-service to this festive must-do by heading to the Covent Garden Piazza in the coming weeks, where comic duo Rachel Mars and Brian Lobel are going to serve up all the vital ingredients that make the panto such a hit – and all in three minutes.
Hampstead-based actor Rachel created the show with Brian and then road-tested it in a particularly trying audition: last year the pair were invited to perform in front of a theatre full of children at the Barbican, along with a host of other entertainers.
If the children liked you, you were in for the season.
It was a bizarre talent show with the judges the young people at whom the season was aimed.
There were some tough competitors.
“There was one bloke called Mr Melon who strode onto the stage in full evening dress, armed with a cricket bat and some, well, melons,” recalls Rachel. “His act consisted of him smashing them to pieces. Of course, it rightly went down a storm and he was in.”
The duo came up with a seasonal idea.
“It’s Christmas and that can only mean one thing: panto.
“But we thought about it and the more we considered panto, the more we thought they are three hours long and there really is no need for this.
“We decided you could squeeze everything a good panto needs into three minutes – and set about proving such.” Now their show is due to debut at the place that makes or breaks London’s street performers: the Piazza in Covent Garden.
“We stuck on gold lamé jackets and came up with nine essential elements,” she says.
These elements consist of a drag act, a strong man, a dare devil, a birthday shout out, some audience participation, a pantomime horse, a joke for the adults, a sing-a-long, and, of course, a chorus of “they’re behind you!”.
It all ends with a food fight and sweets being tossed liberally into the crowd – and all squeezed in to 180 seconds.
Taking it to the streets is a rather daunting prospect, even for an experienced actor like Rachel. “It will be a massive education for us,” she says. “We did it last week and watched how people reacted.
“The scary thing is asking people for money afterwards – I have to try not to be too English – you have to say, er, cough up. That is a very scary thought.”
Rachel does have a day job – but it is linked to her night-time pursuits of making people giggle.
Working as an arts programmer for the Jewish Community Centre (JCC), she has helped bring the body’s successful and eclectic diary to life.
The group are in the process of building a new home in Finchley Road – ready to open its doors in 2013 – and in the meantime they run events right across north and central London.
While the programmes come in under the umbrella of the JCC, Rachel says it is a slight misnomer: yes, many people involved are Jewish, but it would be a mistake to think of this as anything other than a purely cultural thing.
She points out that many of her generation are not religious but still want to engage with their Judaism.
Some of the events have slants towards what could be called “issues” – an Arab-Israeli book club meets bi-monthly, hosted by Israeli and Palestinian academics Ariel Kahn and Samir El-Youssef, where literature with Middle Eastern themes are discussed – but the JCC’s raison d’etre is having fun and broadening your mind.
Under Rachel’s guidance it offers a film club, while other concepts include Yiddish Bingo – “a good way to stock up on some Yiddish curses,” she says.
On December 4 an alternative Hanukkah night, called Jewltide, is being held at the Jewish Museum in Albert Street.
Other highlights include the “Maccabi versus the Greeks” thumb wars with finger puppets, as well as Songs in the Key of Hanukkah, presented by Erran Baron Cohen, brother of Sacha.
• The three-minute pantomime show by Rachel Mars and Brian Lobel runs every day from Friday November 26 to New Year’s Eve at 5.45pm and 6pm at Covent Garden Piazza