A Fairy Tale for Christmas

by Chrissie Manby

  ‘Why not? What does it do?’

  Trevor pressed it.

  There was the sound of an explosion and a blinding light. On stage, George and Andrew Giggle, who were in the middle of a complicated dance routine, fell straight onto their stomachs and covered their heads.

  ‘That’s what it does,’ said Trevor.

  ‘That’s the first shot in a war,’ said George, shaking his fist as he got back to his feet.

  ‘Actually,’ said Trevor, ‘it’s the last shot in an old battle. That’s for cutting a hole in the bottom of my hose on my last night as Mercutio.’

  Kirsty liked Trevor more and more.

  Once the twins had recovered themselves, insisting all the while that they had nothing to do with Trevor’s trousers, and Jon had given the entire cast a lecture about not playing pranks with expensive lighting and sound equipment, the rehearsal continued and all went smoothly until the ballroom scene. The Ugly Sisters and their mother were newly arrived at the palace. They were standing by the imaginary buffet table, knocking back imaginary booze and helping themselves to imaginary canapés.

  ‘You don’t get vol au vents like this in Lidl,’ said George.

  ‘That’s why the Prince is on the lookout for a wife with a good dowry,’ said Andrew.

  ‘Are those pigs in blankets?’ asked Annette.

  ‘How dare you be so rude about the Duchess of York and her daughters!’ George shrieked.

  Jon read a line that would be given by one of the chorus, announcing the arrival of the prince. Lauren stepped in. She arranged herself at the top of the wobbly staircase to the right of the scene. But instead of her line, she said, ‘No. This isn’t working for me.’

  Everyone looked at her expectantly.

  ‘What’s not working?’ asked Jon.

  ‘The blocking. I can’t do it. I didn’t realise how it was going to be when we were in the rehearsal room. I thought the audience was going to be the other way round. But it’s in front of me.’

  ‘Eh?’ Jon was confused. ‘Of course the audience is in front of you.’

  ‘So I want to come on from stage left,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m going to come on from stage left.’ She turned to head off-stage again.

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You’re a goody,’ said Jon. ‘Panto goodies always enter stage right.’

  ‘Yeah, but if I come on from stage right, then the right side of my face is going to be towards the audience for the whole of my speech, isn’t it, and … well, that’s not my best side. If I come on from stage left, my left profile will be the one the audience sees first.’

  ‘OK,’ said Jon. ‘I see what you’re saying, Lauren, but … no.’

  ‘Why not? It doesn’t matter, does it? All that has to happen is everyone else turns in a different direction as I enter. You can have a new door cut in the backdrop. The staircase can go there instead of here.’

  ‘No,’ said Jon. ‘The staircase stays where it is. Goodies always enter stage right.’

  ‘That’s just stupid,’ said Lauren. ‘Who says?’

  ‘It’s a panto tradition.’

  ‘Who cares about tradition?’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Jon. ‘Forget tradition.’

  Lauren started to smile, assuming she’d won.

  ‘It’s a panto law,’ said Jon.

  ‘And I’m a law-breaker,’ Lauren tried.

  ‘And I’m the director,’ said Jon. ‘My word is gospel. You’ll come on stage right like I’m bloody telling you to.’

  ‘I can’t!’ Lauren suddenly wailed. ‘I never do anything from the right. Never. Look.’

  The rest of the cast were transfixed as Lauren pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her tight jeans and opened Instagram. She made Jon watch as she scrolled through her selfies. ‘Left side, left side, left side,’ she said. ‘I do my forecasts from the left side too. It’s my best side.’

  ‘I can’t tell the difference,’ said Jon. ‘Both sides look perfectly fine to me.’

  ‘No,’ said Lauren. ‘Look properly, Jon. From the left, my nose is really straight. From the right …’ She looked visibly pained as she told him. ‘My nose is really … it’s really witchy.’

  Well, that had the Giggle Twins intrigued. They flanked Lauren and examined her actual profile themselves.

  ‘How does it look on your side?’ George asked Andrew.

  ‘Straight as the hypotenuse of an isosceles triangle.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Lauren.

  ‘How is it on your side?’ Andrew asked George.

  George grimaced. He didn’t need to say anything to set Lauren off.

  ‘See! See!’ she shrieked. ‘He can see it. It is witchy!’

  ‘Lauren,’ said Bernie. ‘You of all people could never look like a witch.’

  Lauren took no notice of Bernie. She was too busy using the photo app on her iPhone as a makeshift mirror. She took a snap of herself from each side and compared them with growing despair. ‘My left side is so much better. Please,’ she begged Jon. ‘If I have to come on from stage right, I’ll spend my whole time on stage worrying what the audience are thinking about my nose.’

  ‘I imagine they’ll be too transfixed by the fact they can see straight through her head,’ said Annette. ‘Hashtag brainless.’

  Bernie shot Annette a warning look.

  ‘Trust me,’ Kirsty said to Lauren. ‘It will be fine. The audience will never notice that there is an infinitesimal difference between your left and right profiles. Some of them might even prefer the side that isn’t so straight. Everyone likes a bit of quirky. And being on stage is entirely different from a still photograph. They’ll be concentrating on your lines, your dancing, your …’

  ‘Yeah. Well, you’re happy to come on stage right because that is your best side,’ Lauren interrupted her. ‘You don’t have to worry.’

  ‘She’s coming on from the right because she’s Cinderella!’ Jon said with exasperation.

  ‘She’s coming on from the right because she’s your girlfriend and you let her do whatever she likes.’

  I wish he did, thought Kirsty. She was on a fast day and Jon was making certain she stuck to it. She knew there was half a Twix in his man-bag. She could hear the damn thing.

  ‘For as long as there have been pantomimes, the left versus right rule has always been in place,’ said Jon. If it wasn’t actually true, he made it sound convincing. ‘It comes from the Latin. In Latin, the left is the sinister side. From sinistra. Destra,’ he pointed to the right. ‘Sinistra.’ To the left. ‘The left side has represented evil from the beginning of time. Why the heck would we change it now?’

  ‘Because it’s stupid. And what you don’t understand is that people aren’t used to seeing me from the right. They’ll be expecting to recognise me off the telly and they won’t because I’ll be standing the wrong way round. People will be paying good money to come and see me act.’

  ‘And what a treat they’ll get, seeing that you actually exist in three dimensions and you’re not just some cardboard cut-out that’s actually blank on the backside.’

  ‘As opposed to entirely blank on the inside,’ Andrew muttered.

  ‘Come on,’ said Jon. ‘We’re against the clock here. Let’s just carry on with the rehearsal. Lauren, you look great from all sides. So let’s take it from the beginning of the ball scene again. Prince Charming enters stage right.’

  ‘I will not,’ Lauren said.

  ‘Heaven’s sake. George and Andy, will you carry her on?’

  The Giggle Twins stepped forward to do the director’s bidding.

  ‘Don’t touch me,’ Lauren snarled.

  ‘Look, Lauren,’ Jon pleaded. ‘If we change the way you enter for every scene you’re in, then we’ll be changing pretty much everything. The blocking is done. The scenery has been painted. The props are all in place. You come in stage f-ing right.’

  ‘I’m call
ing my agent.’

  ‘Great. Please do. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to explain why we’re doing this my way.’

  ‘I just don’t see why everything has to be so traditional,’ Lauren shrieked. ‘It’s weird all the rules you theatre people have. All this don’t come on from the left and don’t say the last line until the opening night and never, ever, ever say Macbeth.’

  There was a gasp from Trevor Fernlea in the wings. Lauren might as well have shouted the C-word.

  ‘Who even cares about some old Dickens play anyway?’ Lauren continued.

  While the others were agog about the Dickens reference, Lauren shouted, ‘Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth!’

  Bernie covered her ears and closed her eyes. The rest of the cast were aghast.

  ‘Macbeth. There. I said it. Macbeth!’ she yelled it out at the top of her voice. ‘And nothing happened, did it? Stupid. It doesn’t make a difference at all. Like coming on stage right. It’s all from a time when people still thought the earth was round, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘Er …’ George raised his hand but Lauren was not to be corrected.

  ‘So why can’t I go on and off from whichever side I want … Like this—’

  Lauren stomped off stage left to prove her point.

  In doing so, she promptly tripped over the song-sheet easel and, in a desperate attempt not to hit the deck, pulled down and ripped the ballroom scene backdrop in two.

  The backdrop fell onto Trevor, which wouldn’t have been such a disaster in itself. It was just a big sheet of paper after all. Not heavy enough to give anyone serious concussion. However, it did give Trevor quite a shock and, suddenly blinded by the paper over his head, he stumbled across the boards towards the edge of the stage.

  George and Andrew tried to catch him before he tumbled into the orchestra pit but only succeeded in making Trevor totter off stage right.

  Where he fell over Cinderella’s stool.

  And blundered straight into a freestanding spotlight.

  And when that toppled over on top of him, it fell onto his head. And the weight of the lamp was more than enough to knock Trevor out cold.

  Annette called for an ambulance while Kirsty, Bernie, Jon and the Giggle Twins tried to bring Trevor round. The twins got Trevor into the recovery position. Vince offered a quick sniff from a small bottle of whisky in lieu of smelling salts. Elaine tried to find the first aid kit in the ladies’ dressing room. Annette found the first aid kit in the gents’. There was nothing in it except for a tube of Savlon from the days when Savlon tubes were still made of metal and three plasters that had long since lost their stick. Bernie fetched a far superior first aid kit from her car though Trevor had no real use for bandages, sterile dressings and anti-histamines. Kirsty found a pillow for Trevor’s head. Meanwhile Lauren shrieked and cried and posted her distress, at length, on Twitter and Facebook.

  ‘Hashtag f-ing brain-dead,’ muttered Annette.

  ‘And that,’ said Bernie, ‘is why we never mention the Scottish play …’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It was bad news. Trevor was awake and sitting up in the front row of the stalls by the time the ambulance arrived but the paramedics decided that, due to his age – as they estimated it – and the fact he had been unconscious, albeit for less than a minute, it was best they took him straight to the hospital. Bernie and Kirsty followed the ambulance in Bernie’s car, stopping off at his house en route to pick up Trevor’s wife of fifty years, Cynthia, who was not best pleased to be interrupted in the middle of hosting her monthly bridge club lunch.

  ‘He does this on purpose,’ Cynthia said as she put on her coat.

  ‘No,’ said Bernie. ‘It was definitely an accident.’

  ‘That’s what you think,’ said Cynthia. ‘You don’t know that man like I do.’

  Poor Trevor, thought Kirsty as Cynthia outlined Trevor’s faults at length. No wonder he spent practically every waking hour at the NEWTS.

  By the time Kirsty, Bernie and Cynthia arrived at the hospital, Trevor was on the ward. The doctor on duty explained they would like to keep him in overnight for observation. Though Trevor seemed to be quite perky, it was too early to say for certain that he was out of the woods. Head injuries were tricky things. You could bang your head, get up, walk home, then, whompf, brain clot and ‘goodnight, Vienna’.

  ‘Really?’ Cynthia looked a little too interested. ‘Does that happen a lot?’

  ‘It’s like Natasha Richardson,’ Trevor mused. ‘Look what happened to her.’ Trevor went misty-eyed. ‘One of the greatest actresses who ever walked the boards. I saw her in 1993.’

  ‘Oooh. What in?’ Bernie asked.

  ‘Actually it was on the Circle Line at Paddington.’

  Cynthia tutted. ‘And you’ve gone on about it ever since. You always had a thing for her. Well, if you’re not dying, I can’t sit here all afternoon,’ she said. ‘I’ve left Joyce in charge of the lunch. I don’t want her taking all the credit for my canapés.’

  ‘That’s all right, dear,’ said Trevor. ‘You go on home.’

  ‘Coming?’ Cynthia said to Bernie. Bernie had forgotten she was Cynthia’s driver.

  ‘Oh, yes. OK. But … Just a minute. Trevor. Is there anything you need? Toothpaste, pyjamas? Something nice to eat?’

  ‘I’ll put his night things in a bag and you can drive them back over later,’ said Cynthia.

  Bernie followed Cynthia out to the car. Kirsty hesitated for a second. She couldn’t believe how brusquely Cynthia had dealt with her husband. Though Kirsty had found him irritating beyond belief at times during rehearsals, she realised as she looked at him in his hospital bed that she had grown rather fond of Trevor Fernlea.

  ‘Would you like me to stay and keep you company for a while?’ she asked. ‘I hate to think of you all on your own in this ward.’

  Just then, a hospital volunteer appeared with a cup of tea and three biscuits.

  ‘You’re only supposed to have one,’ said the volunteer. ‘But seeing as how you’re a star of stage and screen and all …’

  The volunteer placed Trevor’s extra biscuits within reach and moved on.

  ‘She saw me in Romeo and Juliet,’ Trevor explained. ‘I’ve said I’ll tell her all about stagecraft when she’s finished her rounds.’

  Kirsty knew then that Trevor would be well looked after.

  ‘OK.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘We’ll swing by with those pyjamas later. I’d better get back to the theatre.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Trevor. ‘The show must go on.’

  ‘Indeed. The show must always go on,’ Kirsty agreed with him.

  Unfortunately, the show would not be going on for Trevor Fernlea. Follow-up tests the day after his accident showed that he had been more badly affected by the knock to his head than was at first suspected. He found it hard to get back on his feet and walk in a straight line. He was slurring some words and altogether forgetting others. He stayed in hospital for a further three days. During that time, several of the NEWTS – including Lauren who claimed on Facebook that she was desperately sad – visited his bedside. Not least because they all wanted to get a peek at his notes, which would finally solve the eternal mystery: how old was Trevor Fernlea anyway?

  After three days, during which no one from the NEWTS managed to get close enough to his notes or wristband to find out his date of birth, Trevor was allowed to go home. Because Cynthia couldn’t drive and Trevor shouldn’t drive while on his medication, Bernie went to fetch him. She returned to the theatre with the news that the doctor had only agreed to allow him to go home on the strict understanding he would continue to take it easy.

  ‘Bed-rest,’ was his prescription.

  Trevor’s need for bed-rest was going to be a big problem for his wife, who relied on him being out of the house so she could host her bridge club without interruption. It wasn’t that Cynthia was entertaining any gentlemen bridge players with intent. She simply found it easier to be herself when Trevor wasn’t around,
wanting to tell everyone about the bloody NEWTS.

  However, Cynthia’s problem was an even bigger problem for the NEWTS. Trevor’s concussion left them a man down. Had Trevor been a member of the chorus, it wouldn’t have mattered so much but Trevor was Buttons. He had lines. Hundreds of them. He had songs. He had the actual song-sheet to present. That was, without doubt, one of the most important moments in the whole show.

  When Trevor had been out of action for a week, Jon admitted to himself and to Kirsty that he was going to have to recast Trevor’s part. It was not going to be easy.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Jon sat at the kitchen table with a sheet of paper and tried to work out what he was going to do. He asked the NEWTS’ pianist and secretary, Glynis, to email him the society’s entire membership list so that he could go through it for potential cast members he might have missed. It was a depressing process. Of the seventy or so paid-up members, at least forty-five were women. Of the remaining men, three of the best – Vince and the Giggle Twins – were already playing important parts. Four had moved out of the area. Five were missing, rumoured dead. The others were variously too old or just plain awful.

  ‘Perhaps Vince could play Buttons and you could cast someone else as Baron Hardup?’ Kirsty suggested.

  ‘Vince can’t be Buttons,’ said Jon firmly. ‘Can you imagine him interacting with the children on stage for the song-sheet? He’d knock them out with booze fumes. Besides, he can’t remember half the lines he’s got already. Buttons is a much bigger part than Baron Hardup.’

  ‘Then what if one of the Giggle Twins did it?’

  ‘No. They’ve got the sisters down pat. It’d be a shame to split them up.’

  ‘Buttons could always be a girl?’ Kirsty suggested then.

  ‘We’re doing provincial panto, Kirsty. We’re not at the National. It’s one thing to have a girl playing Prince Charming but a three-way female love triangle is much more than Newbay can stand.’

  Kirsty wasn’t sure that was true. She’d heard rumours of a three-way female love triangle in the wardrobe department for a start.