She’s Behind You!, Traverse 1 at The Traverse Theatre, Venue 15

***** (5 stars)

“An absolute cracker”

Yet again I’ve managed to pick an absolute cracker of a show with which to start my August In Edinburgh!

In the beginning, there was the Christmas panto dame…but a dame is for more than just Christmas…

In true panto fashion, our heroine’s entrance was heralded with loud cries of She’s behind you! A vision in blue gingham and sparkly red shoes made her way down the steeply raked steps of Trav 1 to take her rightful place, centre stage.  Her opening number, into which she managed to get digs at just about every other well-kent Fringe venue as well as the International Festival itself, was greeted with a storm of applause. 

Johnny McKnight has been a pantomime dame for a goodly number of years, and works the audience superbly.  Whether you have extensive acquaintance with pantomime and its peculiarities, or not the faintest idea what this outlandish creature on stage is talking about, in an instant you are drawn into Dorothy Blownagale’s magic spell, a helpless, hapless prisoner.  Whether you will or no, you WILL enjoy yourself!

She’s behind you was originally conceived as part of the Cameron Lectures, in association with the University of Glasgow and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.  Johnny McKnight has turned it into a wonderfully, wickedly witty exploration of the history and nature of the Pantomime Dame.  When Johnny first played panto, he was cast as the ‘silly billy’ – the naïve, gormless youth who is simply there to be laughed at, who will never, ever, get the girl – virtual type-casting, except that he was beginning to realise that he would much rather get the boy…

For all its seeming anarchy, panto has innumerable, immutable rules inherited from the commedia dell’arte, all the more challenging because never explained.  ‘Goodies’ and ‘Baddies’ can only ever enter and exit from ‘their’ side of the stage – and up to now, male and female characters alike were almost always played by men.  The heroine could be female, but was generally a pawn with little agency of her own: the whole atmosphere was unquestionably heterosexual, even though the ‘hero’ was played by a girl, with much slapping of fish-netted thighs.  Ageism, sexism, misogyny and cruel mockery were rife…

At least, that’s how it was when Johnny first trod the boards as ‘silly billy’.  In due course, he graduated to playing the Dame, and in his first season felt so uncomfortable, so ghastly, so old that he swore he’d never do it again.  Thankfully for all of us, he broke his oath.  I’m not going to outline his trajectory, or reveal his Basic Rules of Panto – they are for him to tell. 

What I will say is that the story of how Dorothy and Johnny grew and developed, of the challenges they faced, and the triumphant emergence of someone completely at ease with who they are both on and off stage, is an outstanding example to us all, and an encouragement to anyone who is trying to find out who they are, and how to be truly themselves.

There’s music, singing, dancing, glitter, sparkle, audience engagement and embarrassment, drama, tension, suspense, tears, fears and cheers in full measure, and we absolutely adored it.  A standing ovation was richly deserved.

This is a wonderful show which every homophobic, self-righteous Guardian of Public Morals should be forced to watch.  Hurry up and get your tickets before they all disappear!

She’s Behind You!, Traverse 1 at The Traverse Theatre, Venue 15 for more information go to: She’s Behind You | Edinburgh Festival Fringe