BEHIND THE SCENES.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 December 1929, Page 8 (Supplement)

BEHIND THE SCENES.

HOW PANTOMIME IS MADE. "The most fascinating and also the most laborious game I know,” said a famous London pantomime producer to the writer. “Th® man who produces a pantomime on. a big scale must live for it, and with it, almost night and day for a whole year. It is an incubus he can’t escape from; but also a delight he would not miss, if, as it must be, his heart is in his work.

“Before the curtain ■ goes up on Boxing Night, I have already decided on the next year’s production, which 1 try to make as different as possible from this year’s. Thus ‘Aladdin’ is followed by ‘Cinderella’ or ‘Th© Babes in the Wood’ and ‘Blue Beard’ by ‘Mother Goose.’ And the next year’s pantomime once .fixed, I am constantly entering in my ‘suggestion books,’ of which I keep threa always at hand, any ideas that occur to mo from day to day. “The subject fixed, I have a consultation—usually on the evening after Boxing Day—* with my eo-author; and together we prepare a rough sketch of the plot, designed to show our .‘principals’ to the‘best advantage. And it is no easy matter, I can tell you, to evdlv© a score or more new scenes from such an old etory, for example, as ‘Cinderella,’ and to evolve new lines of jokes for our ‘stars.’ For the comic effects, luckily, we can rely on them to a large extent. “When the plot is made out roughly the scenery scheme has to be fitted to it in consultation with our experts, who construct a miniature model of each scene, complete to the minutest detail. And while I am superintending the whole of this work, I have Song daily. consultations with the designers of the thousands of costumes that are required.

“These costumes, I dare say you will bo surprised to learn, may cost anything from £5OOO to £BOOO or more, in these expensive days. I know it is a fairly general impression that the dresses Which make such a feast and riot of colour on the pantomime stage are so much ‘tinsel’ of little intrinsic value. But I assure you nothing can be farther from the truth. They are usually exceedingly costly —as expensive, in fact, as many* worn in the most fashionable West End drawing-rooms. “A single dress may cost anything from thirty to sixty guineas. I have known the latter sum paid for . more than one ball dress, exquisite confections sucth as a Duchess might be proud to w«-ar, and beneath which are . worn petticoats of silk and face at many guineas apiece. A picture-dress may cost from twenty guineas upwards, and a Court dress as much as a hundred pounds. „ ’■When you conside\ that dainty shoes, stockings and iinderwear are proportionately costly it is easy. to see how the money liter-' • ally runs away. Even tights, when made of Bilk, provide a formidable item for the bill, when the cost of each pair is expressed in pounds, and two or three hundred pairs have to be supplied. You can thus see that pantomime ‘tinsel’ is expensive enough to satisfy the most exacting and fastidious. “The designing of pantomime costumes is naturally very difficult and harassing work. Take, for example, a typical scene in which two hundred girls masquerade as sea anemones, corals and shells. Here is a tough prob- ' lem for tho designer’; for the two hundred dresses, of all thb colours of the rainbow, must be so designed that, whatever the grouping, they shall present a perfectly harmonious picture. “It is no exaggeration to say that many thousands of hands are employed in preparing the costumes for the London pantomimes alone. One scene in a Drury Lane pantomime kept 250 girls busy for many months; and over a hundred have been employed on two dozen dresses which will be seen for only' a few minutes daily in one pantomime this season. “And while the scenes arc being arranged and the costumes designed, important workers are busy making clay models of the elaborate 'props’ which play a prominent part : in the .pantomimes; and I have also to superintend the manufacture of the hundreds of shields, swords and so on that are required. .“Thus the. months simply fly in tasks ■ that crowd every hour of the long days—* superintending and inspecting the busy activities of hundreds of people, all putting the last ounce of energy and brains into the effort to make-next, year’s pantomime a success.” I