Writer: Daniel Wain
Director: Barney Hart Dyke
Encompassing the eight-week run of a production of Dick Whittington, Look Behind You flits between glimpses of innuendo-dense onstage action and the backstage drama of a between-scenes cobbled-together cast. The fleeting nature of their work relationship and the differing levels of devotion to the cause create antagonism as well as friendship and romantic entanglement.
With a child-free audience, the spirit of panto is stretched to the point where it’s pretty much wall-to-wall smut. The characters discuss the audience (as well as critics), often flirting with the idea of the fourth wall to create a riot of layered dramaturgical fun. Though the barrage of groan-out-loud panto humour can miss the mark, especially when it leaks into the real-life scenes, there are moments of poignant realism that are highly effective and moving.
For some of the characters, such as Camille Crabbe (played by Cait Hart Dyke) and Norma Bailey (Mia Skytte), “reality star” and soap star/Shakespearean actor respectively, panto is for the most part a humiliating expediency. Dyke’s bawdy cockney onstage persona of Fairy Bowbells becomes a foul-mouthed petulant diva backstage. One of several token celebrity castings, she effects the most drastic change between her onstage and offstage characters. Her awful treatment of the pathetically star-struck nepo baby Wendy Westcott-Hall (Olivia Jackson) is made all the more grotesque by the baby pink fairy costume she keeps on. Skytte, who in the panto plays the much booed Queen Rat, is reminiscent of a jaded, ageing Bette Davis in her dressing gown and wig cap, exhaling a constant cloud of vape smoke in the backstage area.
Other characters have less depth and remain more or less the same offstage as on, partly because their backstage lines retain the exaggerated expression, stylised humour and wordplay of the panto. This can be grating but there is an undeniable joyfulness in the delectation of language, as exemplified by the wonderfully dry Robin Eldridge (Steve Pratt) who spends his downtime doing cryptic crosswords.
The central character of the story is Sam Nancarrow, (played with the highest of camp by writer of the piece, Daniel Wain) who is the owner of the fictional theatre, as well as the drag queen of the production, Sarah the Cook. Behind the scenes, he is a barely watered-down version of the relentlessly filthy-minded dame, but his vulnerability is soon revealed in a candid exchange with caustic stage manager Maggie Dunn (Annabel Miller). Wigless, in a dressing gown, but with face still slathered in make-up, we see the tragic side of the clown. His impassioned soliloquy on the magic of the theatre is perfectly pitched and self-referential in the best way.
This welcome turn away from farce sets the scene for the second half, which is more dramatic and emotional. Friction builds between the characters ending in tears and fights that spill onto the stage. We also learn more about the home lives of the characters, which brings further poignancy, depth, and in Sam’s case, anger. Jokes made throughout the play at the expense of the Tories culminate in a rant about funding cuts to the arts at a time when the pockets of government cronies are lined without compunction. Sam directly broaches the question of how theatre stays alive in such a climate, finally venting his fury and frustration. It’s almost as if all the thinning of the fourth wall was laying the groundwork for the communication of this message.
In this way, we see theatre itself putting up a claim for its own relevance and power. Merely staking a claim for the importance of the arts is not as powerful as embedding it in an art-shaped vehicle and sending it out into the world. However, there is an elephant in the room in that the boomer-coded stylisation and humour of the piece surely cannot be the future of theatre. Though it is true that panto remains by far the biggest money-spinner for the industry, it’s key that theatre appeals to younger audiences as an art form that is vital, modern and accessible. So in one sense Don’t Look Behind is very much preaching to the converted, but it may be that the anti-Tory polemic will find some minds to sway in an audience predominantly from an older and perhaps wealthier demographic.
Runs until 3 February 2024
