Paul Merton in Panto at Richmond Theatre!
Dressing up in drag, two hours in which to improvise and ad-lib and raising a lot of laughs – of course Paul Merton is looking forward to Panto! He talked to Pippa Duncan about life on stage and shedding the dour demeanour
This is the interview that very nearly wasn’t. I was first scheduled to Interview Paul Merton at Richmond Theatre’s press day in early October. But they ran over time and I was cancelled. Then we arranged for a Zoom meeting and I sat there staring into space for 20 minutes before giving up. He had forgotten and gone to pick up his wife from the airport instead. A couple of other arrangements fell through between discussions with the theatre press office and his agent but, at the last minute, two days before going to print, we caught up! He was very apologetic about the airport run and I think he didn’t even know about the other arrangements, so all was forgiven. Hard not to when he turns out to be such a lovely guy.
And he’s really looking forward to doing Dick Whittington at Richmond Theatre. ‘Pantomime is such a longstanding British tradition, going back to the 19th century and I love that you have the license to improvise a scene and ad lib as you go. And particularly at Richmond, which is such a beautiful, stunning theatre.’
Improv is obviously his stock in trade. Like many comedians, he started out at the Comedy Store in Soho in the 1980s and went on to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival before starring in shows like the brilliant Whose Line Is It Anyway in the 90s and becoming mainstream in shows like Just A Minute on R4 and BBC’s Have I Got News For You. He regularly tours or appears on TV in his own shows, with his third wife, Suki Webster, who is appearing with him in Dick Whittington.
Most of his shows over the years have been aimed at adults, so he’s looking forward to playing to a young audience. ‘There are elements of slapstick which children are very fond of. They like seeing adults behaving like kids. It’s the opposite of what they’d normally expect – adults being silly.’
And he enjoys silliness. He’s well known for his dour demeanour and deadpan quips, but he says he’s trying to lose the gloomy image: ‘I’m actually quite jolly [on radio]but, of course, you can’t see me.’ I ask him if the poker-faced image is curated or his natural state? ‘One of the first stand up sketches I did as a comedian was as a policeman giving evidence in court about being given hallucinogenic drugs – describing the effects in a straight, policeman- like way. I realised that because he kept it straight, that made it funnier – so it set a tone. But in the last episode of Have I Got News For You I’ve tried to be quite jolly and quite smiley. And Panto is much more upbeat.’
While part of Panto is getting in up-to-the-minute gags (‘Anything with Liz Truss in will get a response from the adults’) he says he’s keen to ‘create a world of escape as the news is pretty grim at the moment. You want to create another reality, so they find they’re somewhere else.’
I ask him why he thinks Panto is so beloved by us Brits. ‘It’s one of the few times you can go to the theatre with literally the whole family, from a 7-year-old to a 97-year-old. You have songs, you have audience participation, you have dramatic scenes. There’s really something that keeps everyone entertained. There isn’t another theatrical form which has such a wide-ranging appeal across the generations.’
Now aged 66 he knows how arduous performing Panto can be: ‘It’s two shows a day. You get in an hour before the performance, do hair and make-up and then you’re in the theatre for the rest of the day. It’s not worth taking off the makeup in between, so I stay there for eight hours. It’s really full on, both mentally and physically, but Suki will be with me so it will be really enjoyable.’
And what about his own Christmas – working on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day doesn’t leave much time for fun. ‘This year we’re happy to be part of other people’s Christmas, so we’ll probably book a nearby hotel and have Christmas dinner there. No cooking. No washing up!’
Dick Whittington, Richmond Theatre: 9 Dec – 7 Jan.
atgtickets.com
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