Gerry Tebbutt - An Asset to Pantomime: The Big 40!

Don't aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally.

{David Frost}

 

Gerry Tebbutt has been a firm fixture at the Yvonne Arnaud theatre in Guildford for over a decade now.  Having first being associated with the Arnaud in 1967, in the musical "The Station Master's Daughter" this is his thirteenth panto at the YAT! Along with his wife Jill Francis, he directs and choreographs the Pantomimes, as well as occasionally starring!

With a milestone birthday, just around the corner, Gerry shows no signs of slowing down... thankfully!!  A familiar face to many in Guildford, due not only to his panto connections but his roles at both GSA and more recently PPA, the YAT panto would be missing a vital link of the chain without him.  

The 2014/15 season marks Gerry's fortieth Pantomime, and I was lucky enough to catch him for a little chat between rehearsals, where he revelled in telling me about his love of Pantomime, some of his favourite memories and why he thinks the art form is vitally important.

So Gerry.... Where and when was your first Pantomime?  And who topped the bill?

My first professional pantomime was Dick Whittington at the Old Colchester Repertory Theatre in 1965 – long before the new Mercury Theatre Colchester was built – although many years later I returned to the Mercury to direct and choreograph several pantomimes. The stars were regular rep favourites with Colchester audiences – Paddy Ward played Dame and his wife Deddie Davies played Dick. This was probably when I first heard lines like “twelve o clock and still no Dick” or “how I loved my Dick – he was so big and strong”.  The Old Repertory Theatre was housed in what was called the Albert Hall in the High Street and as there were no toilets backstage you had to use the front of house facilities once the audience was seated. Unfortunately the town buses stopped outside the theatre and was the usual stop off for bus drivers and conductors to spend a penny and yes, there were conductors in those days! So on any given day during the panto season you would find yourself in full make up and sequined costume probably wedged between a burly driver or conductor trying to complete the business in hand and arrange oneself without appearing too obvious. One looked straight ahead and no words were exchanged! I love panto programmes and fliers and I’ve posted the Dick Whittington programme below – look how much it cost. Sixpence in old money!

Interestingly and probably a long forgotten piece of theatre history were the big Scottish pantomimes produced by Howard and Wyndham who once owned most of Scotland’s theatres. They had their own form of pantomimes centred around a character called Jamie. There was The World of Jamie and I appeared  in one called Love For Jamie at His Majesty’s Aberdeen in 1966. They were very spectacular and I remember the entire company singing The Northern Lights of Old Aberdeen and wearing tartan for the walkdown or as it used to be called the “who’s best”. A year later and the programme cost one shilling!

 

Well I certainly love the title of that one, obviously I'm biased, but what is your favourite pantomime story?

I think it has to be Cinderella!

And without a moment of hesitation!!  Why Cinderella? 

Well... Cinderella is the basis for ninety per cent of musicals. Girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl marries boy the only difference is the journey the boy and girl take, the songs they sing and the people they meet on their way. Think Laurie and Curly in Oklahoma or Sandy and Danny in Grease! 

A close favourite however would be Mother Goose which I’ve done five times but again this is a title that is gradually disappearing although Hackney Empire are doing a production of it this year – so that is on my list of must see. 

Same here.  I've never actually seen it on stage, and I'd love to see Clive Rowe as Dame.  It is great to see some of the older titles creeping back in isn't it?

Absolutely...Other shows that I’ve done that have almost disappeared would be Goody Two Shoes, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Humpty Dumpty, Babes In The Wood and Robinson Crusoe.  I've included a couple of the Show Posters for such productions.

Well hopefully these stories may be having a bit of a resurgence;  especially with the amateur circuit.  Surely the direction of a show has a lot to do with a shows success?  How many productions have you directed?

As director and or choreographer I think it works out at 35 – sometimes I directed, choreographed and appeared – in he early days of course I was in the chorus.

 

It must be quite difficult as a director/performer not to think "I could do it better!" So what is more enjoyable performing or directing?

I love performing but I actually get more joy out of directing. There is nothing more exciting than working on a script – and particularly a panto script – seeing what works and what doesn’t. For me the telling of the story is my number one priority and the one liners, comedy routines and running gags are an added bonus. I’ve now done fourteen pinto’s for the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford where the process starts really early. Scenery is discussed as early as the end of January along with meetings with the costume designer, auditions for the babes and ensemble takes place around June by which time there will have been many script meetings with the management of the theatre, casting will be constantly on everyone’s mind and the publicity department will be looking for new ways to promote the forthcoming show. The main characters in the cast would be required to do a photo shoot in 

costume for the fliers and by early September nearly everything would be in place for the panto launch.   This is a picture from this years shoot, although three of the seven aren't actually performing with us.

So although for some panto means Christmas, for many of us panto lives with us throughout the year. A lovely companion to have! How lucky we are at the Yvonne Arnaud to have brand new costumes every year. Of course many companies send out sets and costumes year after year after year. In fact I have a picture of myself wearing a costume in a Tom Arnold pantomime that Jill wore twelve years later – long before we met. By that time the costume had almost deteriorated!

So you must have met a few famous faces along the way... who is your favourite panto star that you have worked with, both performing and directing?

I had the great pleasure of working with one of Britain’s best loved but now long forgotten panto Dames. His name was George Lacey although I only worked with him once in a revue called Cockles and Champagne but sadly not in pantomime.  George played Mrs. Lovett and I played Anthony in a one act version of Sweeney Todd called Short Back and Sides. I’ve posted a picture of George and myself in that production.

There is a terrific programme about George on you tube called The Art of the Panto Dame.   [http://youtu.be/HyPEynmgcRo] I once choreographed Barbara Windsor playing Cinderella at the Odeon Theatre Golders Green – sadly the Golders Green Hippodrome had been converted into a television studio by then – but I do remember Miss. Windsor creating a stir after the dress rehearsal and refusing to wear any of the costumes and locking herself in her dressing room until someone solved the problem!  As it was traditional in those days to open pantomimes on Christmas Eve the management had to beg Bermans and Nathans – the costumiers – to open up early on Christmas Eve morning in order to get a new wardrobe for the star. It was worth it and although it might seem odd casting now she was terrific. 

I also loved working with Freddie Frinton – a notable comic -  in Robinson Crusoe at the Lyceum Sheffield – opened Christmas Eve and played through to the first week in April –  Freddie did a wonderful rendition of Nobody Loves A Fairy When She’s Forty and of course his famous Dinner for One routine. If you haven’t seen it it’s out there on you tube and apparently still very popular viewing over the Christmas period. 

Eve Boswell – a major singing star in the 60’s played Aladdin for me at the New Theatre, Hull – but she had it written into her contract that she would perform her act. So we get to the cave scene at the end of act one and she goes into twenty five minutes singing all her hit songs. What “Sugarbush” and “Pickin’ a Chicken” had to do with the plot no one ever knew – certainly the younger element of the audience didn’t – so at that point in the show we referred to the auditorium as the departure lounge as it seemed a natural loo break for the young’uns while Eve was doing her thing!

 

Forty Pantomimes is a huge milestone Gerry, (many Congratulations of course) but out of the forty "what, where and when" was your favourite to have been involved with.  And who starred?

This is a really difficult question to answer. Over the years all sorts of celebrity’s have turned up doing panto’s – one notable current pop star informed me on day one of rehearsals that he "didn’t act, sing or dance and wasn’t prepared to do any of those things anyway" – even though he was being paid a fortune. Unlike Nigel Havers, a major screen star, who arrived on day one prepared to do anything that was asked of him, involved himself in the process, learnt steps and songs with ease, loved sending himself up and daily arrived with delicious cakes for the company from a very expensive Chelsea bakery! 

I was really looking forward to working with Jack Wild (The Artful Dodger in the film of Oliver) in Cinderella at Greenwich Theatre but due to a drug addiction his speech had become slurred and audiences had difficulty understanding what he was saying. He was a lovely man and passed away shortly after the end of the run.   

I love working with people that understand, appreciate and promote pantomime as an art form. It’s been a joy watching Jamie Brook, who first played small roles for me moving up to becoming the lead comic and handling it with such ease. I’m sure there are many others out there like Jamie who lives and breathes panto – and thankfully these are the people that will secure it as a true art form and continue the tradition.

 

Now we have to mention your lovely wife and partner in crime!! How many pantomimes have you worked on with Jill?

I think this about my fifteenth panto with Jill – our first together was Mother Goose at the Theatre Royal Bury St. Edmonds where Jill played the goose!

The BIG question then Gerry, what IS Pantomime to you?

I like to think that panto to me is a wonderful way to attract young audiences to the theatre – and hopefully it will be something that stays with them. I remember being taken as a child to see Margaret Lockwood – a huge British film star – playing Peter Pan at the Old Scala Theatre in Tottenham Court Road (now demolished) and I know that it was a turning point in my life as more than anything I wanted to be part of that magic and looking back I realise how fortunate I’ve been in spending nearly fifty years in theatre doing something that I love and that I care passionately about. If any of that rubs off on young people who want to follow that dream or indeed young people who want to spend a life of theatre going then it will have all been worth it.

 

And finally Gerry, I'm going to ask this even though I think I already know your answer: Do you ever bore of Pantomime?

No never – I think it is part of our heritage and something that will continue to grow and evolve as it has done

since it was first invented by the ancient Greeks! Of course over the years I have seen many changes

particularly with theatre playbills and I leave you with some of my favourites that I’ve been involved in.

I won't mention that I (regrettably) wasn't born for most of them!! 

A massive thank you to Gerry for his time and such a wonderful insight!  Gerry continues to be the Head of Musical Theatre at PPA in Guildford and his current production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs can be seen at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford until January 4th 2015!

We leave this post with a picture of the man himself with this years Wicked Queen Josie Lawrence and our delightful 'Spirit of the Mirror' and National treasure June Whitfield! 

JB 
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