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There is nothing like a Dame, says Roger
Dan Carrier talks to television and film actor Roger Lloyd Pack about his latest role as a pantomime dame
THE pantomine season is in full swing, and Kentish Town-based actor Roger Lloyd Pack is playing a part that can be found in all the traditional shows, from Cinderella to Peter Pan, from Dick Whittington to Aladdin – the role of the dame.
In the past, the lead male character was played by a young woman. Nowadays, the bigger pantomimes, needing bums on seats, often revert to a soap star or reality TV show face to take on the role and ignore that fact.
But the cross-dressing institution Lloyd pack has taken on is still firmly in place.
Lloyd Pack plays Sarah the Cook in the Barbican theatre’s first pantomine and he is revelling in the comic challenge of hamming it up as a lady.
The actor, whose credits include big-screen roles in the Harry Potter films, and is a regular in such British TV institutions as Only Fools and Horses, in which he plays Trigger, The Vicar of Dibley and Dr Who, has only ever appeared in one other pantomine and never as a dame. But he says the gender of his character is irrelevant as he steps out in front of the audience – it is just another acting role.
“I do not think of it as playing a dame, I just happen to be playing a part that is a woman,” he says.
But he is aware that his role is the comic cornerstone of the show.
“A bloke in a dress. Why is that funny? I simply don’t know, but there is something hilarious about it and it is rather enjoyable to put on the costume.”
And he is following in the footsteps of some of the greatest British comic actors.
“There are people who make this role a career,” he says. “It is done by the likes of Desmond Barnett, Les Dawson, Stanley Baxter. Others who knew the comic value of cross dressing include The Two Ronnies – they were brilliant at it.”
Actors in the past wanted to make it abundantly clear that the wearing of a dress was not a comment on their masculinity, although others were determined to look as ladylike as possible.
“Arthur Askey used to wear his trousers under the dress to make it clear he was a bloke,” says the actor.
“However, you get people like Danny La Rue, who was basically a female impersonator, so there are two ways you can play it.”
His role as Sarah the Cook is influenced, he says, by the costume he wears.
“I have to play to the costume I am given,” he says. “It is a great help to have it as a guideline.”
The role has also allowed Lloyd Pack to draw on some of the skills he learned as a drama student.
For TV and film work, a make-up artist looks after him, and in modern theatre make-up is used sparingly, as the lighting is now so good, pots of greasepaint are no longer needed.
But no panto dame would be complete without a bit of rouge applied across the cheeks – a job Lloyd Pack does himself.
“It only takes me about 20 minutes to get ready,” he reveals.
“I am careful not to over do the make-up because I don’t want to mask my own facial expressions.
“I was a little nervous to do it at first but at drama school I was taught how to make up. I used to make my own wigs and beards back then and it is enjoyable using those skills again.”
But it is the traditional aspects of the role that also appealed.
“One of the reasons I wanted to do the show is it is so interactive,” Lloyd pack reveals.
“I love being alone with the audience. It can be scary – it is like doing stand up, and that terrifies me. It is totally different from acting and is a real challenge. It is a two way thing, and that is great for children.”
The show is a first for the Barbican. The theatre is a bastion of Shakespearean productions and, says Lloyd Pack, the story of Dick Whittington has similarities with the Bard’s work.
“Firstly, Shakespeare always had men playing women,” the actor says.
Also, there are parallels with the Tempest – the power of redemption, the comic figures, and the love between the two young characters. There is also aspects of Twelfth Night – the concept of mistaken identity.” And the Barbican also attracts the actor for other reasons.
“It seems somehow fitting to show the Whittington story in the Barbican as it is the centre of the City of London, and therefore has so many historical links to Dick Whittington,” he says.
“Whittington was originally a medieval story – he was three times the Lord Mayor of London.”
But the facts of Richard Whittington’s rise from poverty to riches and power has evolved over the centuries as writers have taken the tale as a basis to entertain.
“There are so many collective myths,” says Lloyd pack. “They merge into different stories and then become embellished over the years. And the pantomine is an unusually British institution. Americans and other cultures just do not get the idea of audience involvement, of the cross dressing. The idea of pantomine is a very archaic thing.”
Writer Mark Ravenhill, best known for more serious works such as Shopping and F***ing, has emphasised the storytelling aspect of pantomine.
Llody Pack added: “Mark has been much more involved than a writer normally is. He emphasised that this is a traditional panto with a strong slant on story telling. It is two and half hours long, and the children have been riveted by it.”
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