Skip to main content

She’s Behind You

Traverse Theatre

Four stars

 

A good dame should grow old disgracefully. So says Johnny McKnight, and he should know. This dressed up doyen of twenty-first century pantomime has been at it for twenty years now, and has learnt a trick or two along the way he wants to share with us in this solo show and tell of his brilliant career. In order to do this, McKnight arrives on stage in full costume, make up and attitude as Dorothy Blawna-Gale, who has become a true friend, both to McKnight and young audiences who lap up her larger than life persona.

 

Don’t be fooled by the disguise, mind. Behind the extravagant wig, make up and gingham ensemble that liberates McKnight to reel off a stream of deadly one-liners, McKnight lays bare both his personal odyssey into the pantosphere while relating some of its colourful history.

 

From a primary school kid enthralled by panto great Johnny Beattie, McKnight works his way up to don a frock to call his own. As he speaks directly with the audience, McKnight sets down the rules of Dorothy, essentially a bullet point guide to do and don’ts learnt the hard way through his anything goes early years. From dealing with complaints McKnight learns the art of staying true to one’s muse whilst taking responsibility for his actions. 

 

Crucially, McKnight comes clean regarding his personal emancipation as a gay man as sex and sexuality come calling. Out of all this, McKnight retains an evangelical zeal for his artform, and sees panto as a genuinely subversive means of creative expression.

 

Originally presented as this year’s annual Cameron Lecture at the University of Glasgow in honour of former tutor Dr. Alasdair Cameron, McKnight’s candid tour de force has been turned into a full production care of director John Tiffany. Tiffany sprinkles his own high-octane magic on to things in his Traverse Theatre production in association with the National Theatre of Scotland. The result sees McKnight framed by Grant Anderson’s pink hued lighting on Kenny Miller’s star emblazoned showbiz set for 

a powerhouse of wisdom from the frontline of the original people’s theatre.

 

Apart from anything else, McKnight is a wonderful performer who looks totally at ease onstage in a work that celebrates pantomime’s roots while looking to future possibilities in a show that should be required viewing for theatre scholars throughout the land. 

 

Until August 24, various times.


The Herald, August 5th 2025

 

ends 

 

 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Myra Mcfadyen - An Obituary

Myra McFadyen – Actress   Born January 12th 1956; died October 18th 2024   Myra McFadyen, who has died aged 68, was an actress who brought a mercurial mix of lightness and depth to her work on stage and screen. Playwright and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, David Greig, called McFadyen “an utterly transformative, shamanic actor who could change a room and command an audience with a blink”. Citizens’ Theatre artistic director Dominic Hill described McFadyen’s portrayal of Puck in his 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London as “funny, mischievous and ultimately heartbreaking.”   For many, McFadyen will be most recognisable from Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based around ABBA songs. McFadyen spent two years on the West End in Phyllida Lloyd’s original 1999 stage production, and was in both film offshoots. Other big screen turns included Rob Roy (1995) and Our Ladies (2019), both directed by Mi...
1 comment
Read more

The Passage – Hip Rebel Degenerates: Black, White and Red All Over

Prelude – The Power of Three   Fear. Power. Love. This life-and-death (un)holy trinity was the driving force and raisons d’être of The Passage, the still largely unsung Manchester band sired in what we now call the post-punk era, and who between 1978 and 1983 released four albums and a handful of singles.    Led primarily by composer Dick Witts, The Passage bridged the divide between contemporary classical composition and electronic pop as much as between the personal and the political. In the oppositional hotbed of Margaret Thatcher’s first landslide, The Passage fused agit-prop and angst, and released a song called Troops Out as a single. The song offered unequivocal support for withdrawing British troops from Northern Ireland.    They wrote Anderton’s Hall, about Greater Manchester’s born again right wing police chief, James Anderton, and, on Dark Times, rubbed Brechtian polemic up against dancefloor hedonism. On XOYO, their most commercial and potentially mo...
Post a Comment
Read more