The British panto season holds an increasing attraction for American stars. Perhaps it is its roots in the burlesque style – ‘I never performed in burlesque, which is related,’ muses Paul Michael Glaser in the Independent On Sunday – he is is playing Hook in Bromley, ‘but in the Sixties there was thing called a happening, which asked for more audience participation.’ News Hour suspects that Glaser, who has never seen a panto before, may be in for a shock. Still, the adversarial nature of Hook will put him on the front foot for dealing with the audience.
A fellow genre debutant is 86-year-old showbiz trouper Mickey Rooney. The veteran of more than 300 screen roles, Rooney will be performing as Baron Hardup in Sunderland Empire’s production of Cinderella, and sharing the stage with Les Dennis as Buttons – a role the former Family Fortunes host somehow seems born to play. One can only imagine the late night confabs between Dennis and Rooney over loves lost and won, the ups and downs of showbiz and the fickle nature of fame – brandies in hand, heads rocking unsteadily over a closing bar. Rooney knows how to warm up a city, and is due to visit Sunderland to switch on the city’s illuminations (some lesser lights have already been switched on by Les Dennis). What a performer – panto won’t phase him. It’s all just entertainment to a guy like that. An audience is an audience.
Hollywood veterans seem eager to flex their dramatic muscles in the British provinces, cutting a swathe through this daring new form of theatre. Leave fronting the big West End productions to the young folk, off doing their Hollywood gap year, and Sir Ian McKellen, a man so important to the acting community that a musical may be made about his life. Henry Winkler seemed to relish every second, having stepped into the breach when David Hasselhoff got a better offer from America’s Got Talent last year. After playing Hook in Wimbledon, he is now playing the same part in Woking, although doubtless at a much deeper level.
News hour, with Jerry Caesar 