THE RENMORE Panto is a staple fixture of Galway’s festive season and Peter Kennedy is a staple fixture of the Renmore Panto. This year’s offering is Aladdin and, as always, Kennedy has both written the script and plays the role of Panto Dame.
Over a Sunday morning phone call, Kennedy discussed his lifelong love of panto and looked forward to this year’s show.
A native of Belfast, Kennedy was born to panto; his father, William Kennedy, regularly played the Panto Dame with the Ulster Operatic Society and Peter began attending pantos at an early age. He recalls the professional pantos in Belfast featuring such feted stars as James Young and Frank Carson but Kennedy himself preferred seeing the amateur productions.
“I always enjoyed the amateur pantos most,” he declares. “The professional pantos were always geared toward the star performer and were basically like variety shows built around them. I’m very much into the tradition of panto and I think the homespun amateur pantos kept the essence of the original fairytales that much better and they had more interesting characters in them as well.
“Those are aspects that I’m still very conscious of when I’m writing a panto script and I always aim to produce something that is strong on character and story and has some of that fairytale magic that the kids enjoy so much.”
Kennedy followed his father’s footsteps into the Ulster Operatic Society, scripting and appearing in a number of pantos with them and also becoming well known as a director and choreographer, winning several AIMS awards. Then, in 1997, came the fateful move to Galway; he explains how the move came about.
“Mags Heffernan had written a new musical called Johnny Angel and I was asked to direct it,” he says. “As soon as I arrived here my love affair with Galway began and right from the beginning I said to myself if I was to leave Belfast it would be to move here.
“After I’d done Johnny Angel a number of friends persuaded me to start a musical society here and I set up Encore Theatre Company and soon after that I met my wife-to-be, Donna, who is from Corandulla and that sealed the deal and I have been here ever since!”
Just a few weeks ago Kennedy and his wife celebrated the birth of their son, whom they named Dualta, after one of the chief characters in Walter Macken’s The Silent People and The Scorching Wind. “Another Galway connection!” he chuckles.
Kennedy’s debut as a dame with Renmore Panto came in 2004’s Sleeping Beauty while 2006’s Robin Hood & the Babes in the Wood also saw him assume script-writing duties and he has carried both roles every year since then. So as a seasoned panto dame, what would Kennedy say are the essential qualities one needs to play such a role?
“A lot of neck!” he laughs. “One mistake that people sometimes make is assuming that all the dame’s banter is merely ad-libbed. The first rule is that you have to learn the script thoroughly first and only then are you able to take occasional liberties with it. The other essential thing to remember is that it’s primarily a kids’ show and you have to act like a big kid yourself and not take yourself too seriously in it.”
Topical humour and local references are prime ingredients in any panto and Aladdin won’t disappoint on either of those scores.
“Naturally enough, following his recent ascension to the Áras, Michael D Higgins will get a mention or two,” Kennedy reveals. “I’m actually a big admirer of Michael’s as he’s done so much for the arts over the years and he’s also been a supporter of the Renmore Panto.
“One of his presidential rivals Sean Gallagher is another one who gets a mention or two in the show but I would say overall I think we have less political gags this year than in the last couple of pantos. There are plenty of local references in it though so I think people will enjoy those.”
Kennedy is a great believer in the role panto plays in introducing children to the joys of theatre.
“For many children panto is their first experience of theatre and if it’s good it’s something they will always remember,” he says. “To give you an example, I was queuing in the bank one day when I noticed this little girl staring at me. Her mother began to scold her about staring and the little girl piped up ‘but Mammy, that’s Nurse Nappy!’
“I well recall the impact that panto had on me when I was a kid, I never forgot the shows I saw. I’ve also worked in education and theatre can be a crucial element in a child’s development, it can lift lonely kids out of themselves for instance.”
The Renmore Panto has also proved to be a fertile nursery for emerging singing and acting talent; its alumni include the likes of actors Cathy Belton and Nora-Jane Noone, and singers Frank Naughton and Garrett Phillips.
“Renmore has been good training for up-and-coming talent down the years,” Kennedy notes. “We have a number of new performers with us this year in Aladdin and they are really proving their worth, I think they’re going to do very well and we’re all looking forward to putting the show on for the people of Galway.”
Aladdin opens at the Town Hall on Friday December 30 and runs until Sunday January 15. Tickets are available from the Town Hall on 091 - 569777 and www.tht.ie
