David Lister: The Week in Arts

Charming, perhaps, but will they hook children?

Some West End producers have been lamenting that there seems to be no room on the stage for anything but musicals these days. But oh yes there is! Panto season is upon us. On Thursday, one of the biggest pantomime production companies, First Family Entertainment, unveiled its stable of stars and productions for this Christmas.

The two biggest names at the launch were true TV stars: Patrick Duffy and Henry Winkler, in other words, Bobby Ewing from TV's Dallas and the Fonz from Happy Days. Duffy is playing Prince Charming and Winkler is appearing as Captain Hook in their respective productions.

Winkler admitted that he had never actually heard of panto before now, but was thrilled to be appearing in one.

I wonder if the children can contain themselves. There on stage, instead of the usual soap stars and minor celebrities, will be two famous names that they have never, well, heard of. Pantomime casting always bewilders me, but this must take the biscuit. Surely, if one is going to have guest stars for an entertainment largely aimed at children, those guest stars need to have some sort of resonance with children. I doubt if any under 12s have heard of Dallas or Bobby Ewing, and only a few will have heard of Happy Days.

And, without meaning to appear rude or lacking in festive spirit, should Patrick Duffy/Bobby Ewing really be playing Prince Charming? No doubt he is a fine enough actor to disguise the fact that he is a sprightly 57. I just hope that when he finally kisses Cinderella, it won't look like pantomime paedophilia.

It's a hardy annual, a festive debate as regular as panto itself. Who do you cast in a pantomime, and what age group are you aiming at? Of course, panto is family entertainment, and children will be accompanied by parents or even grandparents. But it is still primarily children's entertainment. I don't know of any adults who go to panto without a small person in tow. Yes, it's fun for an adult to see an actor they can relate to and to hear the odd joke that might be above the heads of the children. But the primary enjoyment comes from seeing the children you're with enjoy themselves. It shouldn't be a case of parents reminiscing of days spent watching the Fonz or Bobby Ewing. Anyway, I don't sense a huge demand for that.

The old chestnut of whether there are too many soap stars in panto will doubtless be debated over the coming weeks. But there's nothing wrong with panto taking stars from variety, and the soaps are merely another branch of variety, as indeed is reality TV, which will also supply its fair share of dames and principal boys.

Producers could be more imaginative, though. Keep the soap stars, but add a few TV personalities that children know well, who are not actors: A Blue Peter presenter maybe. And use some really top-class stage actors. Sir Ian McKellen was a hugely funny Widow Twankey at the Old Vic last year. Great stage actors are keen to try their luck in panto. They are just never asked to the party.

I would also urge producers to approach top scriptwriters. Now that radical playwright Mark Ravenhill is writing Dick Whittington for the Barbican, others will be sure to follow his lead.

Panto is more popular with performers and writers than it has been for years. Producers need to up their game, remember who their target audience is and stop reliving their own TV-watching youth.

Magical mysteries

Another week, another list. Well, several lists, actually; but the one that intrigued me was what seemed a very obvious one - though, bizarrely, it had not been compiled before. It was a list of the UK's best- selling albums of all time.

According to researchers at the Official UK Charts Company, Queen's Greatest Hits came first, with 5,407,587 copies, ahead of that old warhorse, The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

This was down as having sold 4,803,292 copies. Oh how I love that figure 2 at the end. What precision. What painstaking research must have gone into compiling this list. The only thing is, if you speak privately to any senior figures at EMI they will tell you that no one has any idea what Sgt. Pepper, or any albums of that vintage, sold.

Back in the Sixties, they weren't so statistics conscious as we are now. They tended to just get on with making records and didn't keep the sales figures for posterity.

Besides, I'm sure that Sgt. Pepper must have sold at least 4,803,293 copies.

* The theatre director Deborah Warner has just received her CBE from the Queen. Ms Warner tells how Her Majesty pinned the medal on her dress at the Buckingham Palace investiture. As she was doing so, she inquired what the director was working on at present. Ms Warner replied that she was presenting Poulenc's one-act opera La Voix Humaine at Sadler's Wells in London. "Oh," replied the Queen noncommitally, pinning on the ribbon. "It's just 47 minutes long," added Ms Warner. "Oh," beamed the Queen, "sounds perfect."

The admiration in the Queen's voice must have been tangible. After all those years and years of sitting through interminable theatrical performances, she had at last come across a woman who was prepared to stage an opera that left time for a decent meal afterwards.

It won't surprise me if it's Dame Deborah next year.