Panto dame cake dress

[cedd]

Panto season approacheth!

 

I'm no costume designer, but have said I'll put out some feelers for sourcing one particular dame dress for this year's panto. Mainly because it'll save me building a large set piece!

 

We're doing sleeping beauty and we start in Princess Aurora's 18th birthday. A large cake is supposed to be wheeled in and then on cue the dame climbs out of it. The problem is that if we do that, the cake will have to be large enough to fit our dame in a dress, and still look like a cake. In other words it'll be big! The problem is our wings are notoriously tight! We certainly wouldn't have space for it.

 

I therefore started wondering if there was a dame's dress out there that actually looks like a cake - I foresaw it as having the top tier of the cake as a hat on top of his head. He could duck down and crawl with the cake as it was brought on, then stand up revealing that it was, in fact, him in his dress.

 

Newcastle Theatre Royal appear to have had something similar a year or so ago;

http://www.getintonewcastle.co.uk/2014/12/theatre-royals-rita-marks-30-years-as-a-panto-dame/

 

It would save a real headache if this could be done in costume!

 

I'm yet to start making calls and will be contacting Newcastle Theatre Royal, along with our usual suppliers, plus York Theatre Royal, who have a huge selection! Just wanted to see if anybody had any leads first!

 

Of course, I'm sure it wouldn't take somebody with the necessary skills too long to knock up if they had some hoops to build in to it. Best to check nobody else has made anything similar first though!

[IRW]

'Hiss & Boo' definately had one a few at least five/six years back when I was working in a venue that hosted their pantos.

 

Edited as I misjudged how long it had been since I left that venue!

[ImagineerTom]

Newcastle Theatre Royal just "buy in" a qdos production so don't have any real involvement in things like costumes. Generally speaking Chris has his own frocks though Qdos do have a selection of dame pieces so it might be something from their hire stock but if it's one of his personal ones then you won't be able to hire it.

 

Hiss & Boo don't own/manage their sets or costumes any more so again not really the best people to speak to either.

 

The biggest stock (and we're talking hundreds of costumes) for panto dame's thats available to dry hire is owned by Imagine (www.imaginetheatre.co.uk) their website doesn't push their hire stuff very well but if there's anyone who has a cake-to-frock available to hire in this country it'll be them.

[cedd]

That's helpful to know! Funnily enough I'm already in contact with Imagine about some other aspects of our show, so that'll be a line to pursue. I knew they did set and props (and big tricks!) but not costume.

 

I think between them and York Theatre Royal I might find what I'm looking for.

 

Cheers

Chris