TMAF has been delighted to play our part in the 2024 Wymondham YFC pantomime. We did not actually take to the stage but helped those who did. Richard Hastings – key cast member and overseer of sugar beet trials at Morley and elsewhere for BBRO – reveals the effort and fun that went into Cinderella and how TMAF helps.
“As we all sat down in September 2023 and picked up the script for the first time, January 2024 felt a lifetime away! Thus began the journey towards our 2024 production of Cinderella and my role as the dame.
The preparations
With casting for each part decided by early October, everyone had the opportunity to start learning their lines and getting into character. For some of us old hands, this was a well-practiced art but for the new recruits, their first learning curve had begun!
We would like to extend our thanks to David Jones and TMAF, without whom the first three months of rehearsals and scenery-making wouldn’t have been possible! Whilst the cast was busy in the TMAF conference room, in a Morley Farms grain store the backstage crew were starting to paint backcloths. For the first time ever, these had been washed and dried over the summer; far better than the usual routine of washing in November! A painstaking process of painting a colour, letting it dry and returning to paint the next colour began. Meanwhile, our carpenter extraordinaire Ed was busy creating Cinderella’s carriage amongst all the other props tasked to him.
The rehearsals
As October rapidly disappeared into November, we started to use the TMAF conference room as a mock stage. We began to act instead of simply repeating lines in each rehearsal, starting to form the script into a proper show, learning where to stand, what to do and where to move on to on stage.
On top of everything else, we began rehearsing our songs despite protests from some of the cast! With a range of abilities from proper singing, to shouting and even screeching (there are some advantages to being a dame!) everyone slowly got the hang of being loud. It also became clear that myself and Edd Barker, the other dame, still didn’t know our lines and to be honest, we never did!
Show time!
January quickly became a reality. The weekend before the show was a hive of activity with scenery being assembled, costumes finished, and dress rehearsals performed. As makeup was applied and costumes worn on the Wednesday evening, everyone had questions on their mind. Would the audience actually laugh at the jokes we’d heard so many times? Would myself and Edd remember any lines? I must apologise to Clare, our prompt, and Anne, on sound control, who we confused every night by missing out cues, mixing up scenes and jumping around each page of the script.
Connecting with our audiences
Despite this, the whole cast and backstage crew did an incredible job, and the pantomime was a great success. The icing on the cake was the lovely feedback we received from every audience. All this hard work and good feedback led to us raising an incredible total of £6,500 for our chosen charity, Nelson’s Journey. It is so good for people from the rural community to work together and produce a show that entertains a diverse audience plus raises money for charity; with 2024 being our 58th Pantomime, I’m confident there are many successful years ahead.
I spent the week prior to the pantomime on the JFA communication skills course which was very well timed! Learning how to engage with diverse audiences was so useful and I was fortunate to get an opportunity to use my newly learnt techniques such as clear talking, audience participation and use of props.”