BREAKING RULES
We all know how it works in Panto. Boy meets girl / Girl meets boy. They gaze into each other’s eyes and with one TING! of a triangle sound-effect they fall hopelessly in love. It’s been happening for decades. It’s how it’s done. But…
…What if that wasn’t the case? What if they don’t fall in love? What if…now stick with me here…What if there was no love story?
DUN! DUN! DUNNNN!
The question we asked ourselves a few years ago was: ‘Does it matter?’ The answer was: ‘Well, it shouldn’t!’ So in 2019 we set out to write a Panto with NO LOVE STORY! Oh the scandal!
*Spoiler alert: It lead to one of my favourite shows that we’ve ever produced at The Helix.
There are definitely components of a Panto you do not mess with:
The good guys have to win.
Everyone dances their way into the happily ever after.
And the Baddie doesn’t have to do the End of Plot.
But when you think about it, we don’t really need a love story. What we need are compelling characters, lots of laughs and a gripping story that doesn’t let go of the audience until the curtain falls and Dad is standing up, coat on with parking ticket in hand ready to pay at the paystation!
Our first foray into this ‘renegade’ idea was our production of The Three Musketeers.
What we had to figure out was how would we structure the show without a love story. So, we came up with the idea of doing a kind of sequel to the original Muskateer adventure. This involved us coming up with the following plot: Two sons of the original Musketeers are in search of the third off-spring so they can join forces and find the Stone of Destiny. Much to their surprise, their search did not lead them to another son but rather a daughter – Daria!
Roy Grimson, Orla Jennings and James Deegan as The Three Muskateers.
It was a conscious decision to place the character of Daria at the heart of our story. A strong female lead with awesome swordsmanship and a personality to match. We wanted the little girls in the audience to look at Daria and see that, yes Princess’ are great, but check out this bad-ass! And hang on to your glow sticks kids becaaaause…
She doesn’t fall in love and marry a handsome prince at the end!
#MindBlown
The question now (yes, there were a lot of questions!) was: Will the audience be disappointed? Will the love story be missed? What I felt at the time was: if we write this right. If we write an engaging, action packed story with plenty of laughs, it really won’t matter.
And low and behold – it really didn’t!
When we got to the end of the show where normally the love story ends up in a proposal, we were left with something different. We had navigated the entire story around the growth of this young girl who had now become a woman. It was a coming-of-age story that culminated in a moment that passed the ‘shivers down the spine test’ every time I watched it. Having defeated the Baddie the theme music for The Avengers kicked in and our heroes stepped into formation with Daria front and centre as she called out:
“All for one…”
– with her fellow Muskateers joining …
“…And one for all!”
It was such a great moment to end this untraditional, traditional Panto!
Since The Three Musketeers we’ve gone on to do three more productions without the traditional love story. The Sword in the Stone saw a brother and sister head off on a quest with their friend to find Excalibur. Red Riding Hood had to save Fairytale Land before all its stories were erased from existence. And last year saw Hansel team up with his estranged sister Gretel to save the fate of the Elves.
And look, that’s not to say that love doesn’t have a place. Of course it does. It’s still a strong feature in all our productions. The great thing about love is that it comes in different forms like family and friendship. But there is room to mix things up a bit. We live in an age where a person’s happy-ever-after doesn’t need to be tied to who they marry. Your happily-ever-after can be what you want it to be. As long as it’s happy!
Karl Harpur is the Creative Director at MerryVille Productions and has been writing for the Helix Panto since 2008.
If you are interested in producing one of Karl’s scripts visit: Panto Scripts