When “dances well for a fat bloke" becomes a compliment!

Jack Edwards treasures a review which stated that he “dances well for a fat bloke.”
Jack EdwardsJack Edwards
Jack Edwards

The point is that he is nimble on his feet – just as Southsea’s Kings Theatre has had to be for this year’s pantomime.

In an era of COVID and restrictions, the Kings all along has been determined to make panto happen – and as Jack says, only the government closing the venue down will prevent them.

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Jack, who is creative director at the Kings, will be filling his usual panto shoes – or rather, dresses – in the dame role which he has so much made his own over the years.

Jack will be Dame Dolly in Dick Whittington – The Pompey Panto 2020 running at the Kings from Saturday, November 28-Thursday, December 31.

“When we went into lockdown, we managed to keep the management going at the theatre and we managed to keep talking about the future, whatever it held. We kept talking, kept making sure that the building was safe, and right from the beginning, we were determined to do panto.

“Our CEO Paul Woolf decided in April that the panto would be going ahead. We sat down and worked out how we could do it. He said we needed to take the risk and he put his money where his mouth is. During lockdown we planned the panto and made sure that everything would be ready.

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“We will have reduced capacity and we have had to cut our cloth accordingly. We were doing Peter Pan with John Challis, and with that you would have had lots of flying which would have been too expensive. We couldn’t have made it work. We are working with 400 seats out of 1,400 on reduced capacity, so we thought about the shows we haven’t done and we decided on Dick Whittington. We are not going to cheapen the product, but the elements of it are cheaper. And we have got all local performers, and all of them have just got something about them.

“Panto matters and especially this year. People are going forward to Christmas and they are just waiting for Christmas – and they want to have some fun. And we can even have some gags about social distancing! Yes, new jokes in panto!

“Interestingly a lot of people just swapped their tickets from Peter Pan to Dick Whittington, and obviously there are bound to be some people who are cautious because the government does change its mind quite a lot. It puts a bit of fear in people. But we have been open since September and we have been able to start to educate people about coming to the venue and about how safe it is. We will have all the measures in place.

“We are having to cut down on the children (on stage). We have got six in each team. Usually we would have 12, and we will have to make sure that they are social distancing. We have got to make sure that there is no partner work (ie dancing which involves touching); and we have got a set of pro dancers as well, and they won’t be able to do partner work either. But I am sure that the audience won’t even be noticing.”

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Jack can’t wait. He will be playing Dame Dolly, and as soon as he gets the dresses on, something just takes over: “I don’t know what it is, but I just love having an audience there laughing and feeding off the laughter, and people enjoy seeing that I am actually quite nimble.”

We come back to that “dances well for a fat bloke” review: “I work with my size and people enjoy that, knowing that I am actually quite a cuddly and warm personality. And I just love being in Portsmouth and being in my dream job.”