Half Time

Half time at tonight’s Panto and the cave scene is being removed, to make way for the opening of Act 2. Whilst we cast sit around in the dressing room congratulating ourselves on a job well done in the first act (or commiserating, if things didn’t go that well), the backstage crew are a hive of activity as they only have a scant fifteen minutes to change everything.
A much better audience tonight, who joined in very enthusiastically with all the booing, cheering and shouting out. At the end of the show the audience are asked what my fate should be. Before the words were only halfway out of the character’s mouth, a young voice in the audience shouted out “kill him”. And I thought the youth of today were supposed to be part of a more caring generation!
Mind you, it might have been because I forgot to go on stage at one point. I was sat in the dressing room, chatting away without a care in the world, when my oppo burst through the door, shouting that I should be on stage NOW!
I blame it on all the cuts in that scene which meant it finished sooner than I expected. Naturally, I styled it out and strolled on to the stage as if I was in the right and all their ad-libbing was to cover up a mistake they had made. You don’t do 29 pantomimes without picking up a few tricks…