Oh Yes I Am! The Panto Dame Musical – Bread and Roses Theatre

Oh Yes I Am! The Panto Dame Musical at the Bread and Roses Theatre, London.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Grass-roots theatre at its most endearing, Oh Yes I Am! is a lovely two-hander that’s funny, insightful, moving and poignant in equal parts while sending the audience home with much to reflect upon, not least about serious topics such as care homes, dementia and what happens in the twilight of our lives.

This is the panto season but this little gem is a musical play about panto life, of the lost dreams of actors whose job as bewigged Ugly Sisters or Captain Hooks it is to make the young laugh or hide behind their hands yet they themselves are often lost, lonely misfits.

A heartbreaker with a soft centre, this wry comedy, beautifully crafted by writer and lyricist Mike Stocks with music composed by keyboardist James Cleeve, sits perfectly in the bijou space above the welcoming Bread and Roses pub away from the bustle of Clapham High Street.

Run by the Workers Beer Company, the Bread and Roses is the only pub in the country owned by a trade union, in this case Battersea & Wandsworth TUC, and has a thriving arts community judging from the full house on the evening I went.

Mind you, it’s one of the smallest Fringe theatres you will find. Those in the front row were so close to the action they got interviewed by Sam Denia in one of his 16 roles, this one a BBC reporter doing a piece on the retirement home for theatricals where reluctant panto dame Hector Hanley is destined to end his days not knowing what year it is nor anything going on in the big wide world.

Sixteen is not a misprint. This versatile performer of many accents shares the stage throughout its 70 minutes with Kevin West’s retired “dame” Hector Hanley, in turn acting as his carer Dan, cousin Matilda who never fails to bring him a Mars bar, the mother who adores him, the disapproving father who wanted him to be a milkman instead of a nancy-boy actor, Carol, his long-suffering agent, Dr Kowalska who assesses him for dementia, but most of all dear departed Dicky, his one and only true love. And a few other impersonations as well. It’s quite a performance.

For his part, West has to portray Hector from young man full of vigour through the disappointment at failing to make it as a classical actor to the ignominy (in his eyes) of being forced into panto to make a modest crust, the fame he and Dicky gained in that sphere, even as far as being awarded OBEs from Her Majesty – cue a ‘Three Old Queens’ chorus! – and finally the decline into incontinence and worse at a home full of retired theatre folk he once knew but were now too old to bother with, not realising he himself was now as old as or older than them.

That care home scene was a reminder of my early adult life in Twickenham and the gorgeous Brinsworth House, a retirement home for stars of stage and screen just round the corner. Many greats like Norman Wisdom, Thora Hird, Charlie Drake and Hylda Baker spent their declining years there, wonderfully well looked after.

It would have been easy to make caricatures out of Dan, the patient carer, and Matilda, the weekly-visiting cousin, but Stocks avoids that while West and Denia handles the final scenes of his confusion with a sensitive touch.

To someone in his ninth decade, this play brought home the proximity of what the future is likely to bring and, on the other hand, made this old man feel incredibly lucky to have got so far with body and mind (just about) intact.

In case you think all this is a bit too depressing and downbeat, there are plenty of tender moments and witty exchanges to compensate. And the songs, while nothing sensational, are totally fit for purpose and often drily humorous. Dicky’s ‘I Yearn For You’, the devoted pair’s ‘Love Waits Next to Me’ and Matilda and Hector’s ‘I Love You’ are particularly affecting.

And Stocks’ dialogue has a light touch and the ring of truth. Take the conversation (with apologies to Huddersfield!) between agent and job-seeking actor in the good old days when Hector still harboured delusions of thespian grandeur and panto was for plebs:

Agent: Let’s talk about this new job.

Hector: This new job, what is it?

Agent: Good money

Hector: Yes?

Agent: Remember, Hector, for an actor nothing is wasted!

Hector: What is it?

Agent: Panto, my boy

Hector: Panto? it’s not art!

Agent: It’s an opportunity!

Hector: Oh no, it’s not!

Agent: Oh yes, it is!

Hector: Oh no, it’s not!

Agent: No one need ever know, I’ll send you somewhere dreadful, like Huddersfield.

Hector: That’s where I’m from!

Agent: Oh sorry – but they pay 12 POUNDS a week!

Hector: £12 a week?

Agent: JUST TWO MONTHS AND IT’S DONE, £12, two months and it’s done!

And the hysterical scene (with which I’m sure the swings of today can readily identify) where understudy Hector almost cheers as the star hurts himself on stage, daring to hope he’ll finally get his big chance. Then comes the big letdown, the star picks himself up and carries on. Hector’s face hits the floor… welcome to showbusiness!

This is fine acting by West who also manages superbly the difficult switch from nostalgic boasting about sexual backstage conquests to instant tragedy when he phones home and discovers his beloved mum has just died.

The experienced West, who sang with D’Oyly Carte Opera in his younger days and has recently been playing Beethoven, is well matched by Denia, a young man of many parts well used to multi-tasking, having warmed up by taking on a mere ten roles in Murder For Two at the Barn Theatre, Cirencester in the spring.

They make a fine pair and this bitter-sweet mini-masterpiece, which started out as a winning song called ‘Heroes of Christmas’ written for an X Factor-type competition and had a much-admired two-day tryout in September at the King’s Head, deserves a longer life. I loved it.

Jeremy Chapman