Cinders, you SHALL go to the ball

Last Sunday, I went to a gay pantomime organised by gay running group Frontrunners.

Rather late in the day, some of you might say, for a panto! True enough...the show originally ran at The Two Brewers in Clapham and was such a hit that a further showing at The Black Cap in Camden was required. Which is where I was on Sunday.

Although it gets mocked a bit, I like the Black Cap and when I lived in North London it was my local gay bar/club (journey-wise it was about a half hour bus ride from home, but in London terms that still qualifies as a "local"). Now I'm a Saaaarth Londoner, the Two Brewers has become my local. Both places have a similar atmosphere and crowd - having neither the ultra-posey, label-obsessed, up-itself ambience of certain Soho bars, nor the naff, provincial tawdriness of some gay pubs you encounter in the fringes/suburbs. Instead they occupy a perfect middle ground where the punters are relatively friendly, the music is good and a fun, unpretentious night out is the guiding principle.

Anyways, what of the panto itself? It was a gay variation on Cinderella - "Cinders and the Panto Pride Run". Cinders himself was a rather handsome young man, a servant boy working at Chainup Hall, who falls for the golden boy of British athletics, Casey McPacey. However, the nasty Baron Chainup and his even nastier drag queen daughters, Nicole Ferrari and Colleen Corvette, have other plans and the drag queens set their sights on winning Casey...Dig all the names, eh?

As "Cinders" was performed by a gay running group they naturally managed to squeeze in (so to speak) lots of references to running and athletics, not to mention plenty of filthy humour and double entendres as you would expect (unfortunately I have forgotten most of it - DRAT! - should have had my pen and paper at the ready). The cast was virtually all male apart from one lady who played a character called Miranda Moneygrabber. She was decidedly dykey anyhow. The drag queen ugly sisters were hilarious and tres bitchy and Baron Chainup very blond and Germanic. His outfits left very little to the imagination. Cinders himself was a good looking fella (as the lead boy should be) and in one scene stripped down to his underpants, which was rather yummy. And oh my, I'm forgetting Buttons! As in the "straight" Cinderella, he was the nice guy with a bit of a thing for Cinders who sadly gets left on the shelf (I actually thought he was better looking than Casey McPacey - is there no justice in the world?) And last but not least, the Fairy Godfather, resplendent in a leotard, fairy wings and bucket loads of glitter.

My only real gripe with the show was the acoustics - rubbish! There was no sound system in the club and none of the actors were miked up so it was sometimes quite hard to make out what was being said. It didn't help that there were people at the back of the bar yapping away. How rude! They should have been barred! Fortunately we were stood close to the stage so could just about make out all the comings and goings.

And in the classic panto tradition, we also got the requisite audience participation song at the end, in this case "Do Re Mi". Very camp. My friend actually got pulled onto the stage to help out with the actions and did a great job (he's a part time actor hence a bit of a natural). The audience were split into two competing groups with each side taking turns to sing the song. Unfortunately when it got to my "group" the other side decided to boo and hiss over the top of us, drowning out our sterling efforts. Unsporting gits!! However the judges gave us the benefit of the doubt and disqualified the other side, making us the unanimous winners. Yaaaay! My friend got handed a large box of chocolates as a prize which we scoffed on the train home. To the victor go the spoils...