Pantomime in August? Oh no it isn’t!
It isn’t, actually. True, She’s Behind You is a self-penned celebration of the daming career of Edinburgh panto legend Johnny McKnight, that’s performed by him in full Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz-themed outfit. And he does throw sweets to the audience.
But he also swears a lot and eschews a fairytale plot in favour of an autobiographical night in which he shares stories from his career in panto, something that has taken up much of his adulthood.
It’s a funny old show, but it starts off strong. Directed by the great John Tiffany, it fizzes into the room effervescently. There is, quite simply, a lot of mileage in a dame coming on stage in the middle of August and swearing a lot: it’s giddily subversive of the genre’s wholesomeness while embracing its undercurrent of naughtiness, and there’s just an illicit thrill to being reminded of panto at this time of year, like scoffing a plate of mince pies in March. Kenny Miller’s set is uncluttered by props, but built around a big star of colourful lights that glitters and twinkles like the world’s most fabulous dressing room.
After a while it gets more earnest, as McKnight talks about what we might call his panto journey, which has taken in two decades, 18 dame performances, and 30 writing credits. The sweary veneer is largely put to one side and he speaks earnestly about his youthful days in panto and playing the sexless Silly Billy role, graduating to daming, getting pissed at an aftershow and sharing all the things he thought were wrong about the stale Scottish panto scene of the mid-’00s – where low-level racism still abounded and women were few and far between – and being offered a chance to write something better.
I suppose one of the issues with this sort of show is that we all have our own hometown dames (and pantomimes that we feel protective over,) and consequently I did find myself rolling my eyes as She’s Behind You suggested that McKnight had single-handedly dragged pantomime as a national art form into the modern era. I also thought that despite promising to address them, McKnight never took people’s objections to panto head on. There’s a bit about consent in daming interactions, but McKnight flexes away from it effortlessly, and never addresses, say, the fact some people regard daming as homophobic or even transphobic.
The bottom line is that if you’re somebody who has grown up watching McKnight’s shows, you’ll get more out of She’s Behind You than if you hadn’t. And even if you’re his biggest fan, I think maybe a collaborator to sharpen up the slightly mawkish second half might have been in order. Still if you love pantomimes then you’d be silly to pass up on She’s Behind You this Fringe.
