This show did not even exist as a vague idea before the 29^th of July 2004, though some of the material is far older than this. We were having trouble casting the show that we wanted to do and were talking about not doing a show at all this year.

Then Charlotte said “Oh, Mike will write something around the cast that we have got!” “Will I?” I thought but somehow the words came out of my mouth the other way round. I have done Christmas shows where I work for many years, using friends and students as the cast. They usually last about half an hour and are very amateur. I looked at these first. In one we’d started with a parody of “Waiting for Godot” and called it “Waiting for Panto” because I thought that we’d only have two people available to act. Some of you may have seen the original “Waiting for Panto” and may recognise the first couple of minutes of this show.

However, I soon got fed up with “Waiting for Godot” then and I soon got fed up with it this time. I’d been given a number of ideas by the group, which I (mostly) ignored. One I did take up was to parody the Ridgeway Theatre Company but I soon got fed up with that too. Then I had (what I thought was) a “Good Idea”.

Now, my instinct is to not to tell you any more. In fact I think I’ve revealed too much of the plot already. However, Charlotte reckons that 90% of the audience come because they know somebody in the cast and if that’s true then most of you will know what this show is about already because you’ll have helped with line learning. We tried to reduce leaks by using most of the Gamper family and nearly all of the Merretts but I expect most of you already know what’s going to happen so there’s actually no point in explaining it anyway.

If you are one of the 10% who don’t know anybody in the cast then ask the person next to you, they probably do. Save to say that my “Good Idea” allowed me to cut and paste vast chunks of Shakespeare from an Internet web-site which saved me a great deal of writing and which we have gradually been whittling down to get the second half to a reasonable length.

I gave the group a finished script on the 1^st of September, dared Charlotte to direct it (as she’d dared me to write it) and then went away for nearly a month. By the time I got back they’d decided to do it, had cast it and had even found people who wanted to be in it who hadn’t had anything to do with the group before.

So, I hope you find what follows fun (and maybe funny). Some of it is 400 years old and some of it didn’t exist before August this year. Some of it was only added last week!

Mike Williams

November 2004