The Cinderella Killer (3 page)

And the rule of thumb is that the more the performer is being paid, the more prominent he or she will be on the poster. In the theatre, billing is an unarguable reflection of success or failure. The highest peak attainable is a position ‘above the title'. The artiste who reaches that level is an undoubted star, more important than anyone else in the show, more important than the show itself (and certainly more important than the show's writer).

But then sometimes a show has two stars, each of whom has the right to appear in that coveted position. In that situation the wrangling between agent and management becomes even more heated.

The
Cinderella
poster left no doubt as to who was the star. The size of Kenny Polizzi's name suggested that he must be being paid about fifty per cent of the production's budget. This implication was endorsed by the way his photograph dominated the space. The internationally recognized face of Dwight Bredon beamed out, a tribute to expensive dental work, five times the size of any of the other cast pictures. He was dressed in a shabby eighteenth-century frock coat, whose slight misalignment suggested that his head might have been superimposed on the costume by some photographic wizardry. And below his name was the legend: ‘As Baron Hardup'.

The poster was new because of his relatively late booking. Earlier versions had been dominated by the names and photographs of two British soap stars. Cinderella was being played by Tilly Marcus ‘from TV's
Gatley Road
' while one of the Ugly Sisters, Nausea, was to be Tad Gentry ‘from TV's
Frenton High
'. Furious negotiation between the two actors' agents and the theatre management had led to them being given exactly equal billing, in terms of font and photograph size. But Tilly Marcus, whose name appeared on the left-hand side of the poster and would therefore be first to catch the eye, might feel that she had gained a tiny advantage over her soap-star rival.

The actor playing the other Ugly Sister, Dyspepsia, was called Danny Fitz and he was way down the poster, both in position and font size. The fact that he was one of the most experienced and brilliant pantomime dames in the country went for nothing – he didn't have any television credits.

The show's Buttons was to be Felix Fisher, who had plenty of TV panel shows to list after his name. He had started out as a very gay foul-mouthed stand-up, wearing flamboyant costumes and heavy make-up, and was now negotiating the difficult passage towards lovability and hopefully hosting a television game-show. The theory was that Buttons, the cheery kitchen boy of whose adoration Cinderella is unaware, would be a perfect stepping stone on that journey. And no one in the production company putting on
Cinderella
seemed to have seen anything incongruous in casting in the role someone whose shtick was his gayness. Maybe the thinking was that the kiddies in the audience would not find anything odd in his avowals of love for Cinderella, and the older members would find humour in its irony.

Certainly nobody involved in the production seemed to have thought that changing round the casting of Tad Gentry and Felix Fisher might have been a good idea, thus achieving a straight Buttons and another camp Ugly Sister. But no, the thinking had not gone that far. All the production company wanted was names with television credits to put on the poster.

Charles Paris was amazed that they'd even found a couple to put by his name. Neither series had been much of a success, and both had been an extremely long time ago, but sure enough under his name was the byline ‘from TV's
The Strutters
and
Stanislas Braid
'. Mind you, in the lowly role of one of the Broker's Men, he didn't justify a photograph.

His fellow Broker's Man, however, did. In the bizarre manner of celebrity casting for pantomimes, the part had been given to an ex-boxer. A promising light-welterweight as an amateur, Mick ‘The Cobra' Mesquito had turned professional at the age of nineteen. Having moved up to the welterweight division and defeated most domestic opposition, he had had one shot at a world title, when he'd been humiliatingly thrashed by a Puerto Rican. He continued fighting against ever less distinguished opposition until a detached retina caused him to hang up his gloves.

It was then that a pushy management company decided to promote the media career of Mick ‘The Cobra' Mesquito. He was initially put forward as a pundit on boxing coverage, but they had ambitions for him to go further. He was good-looking and the genes from his Caribbean father had given him a colour that was very attractive to television companies in search of diversity. The fact that he was no good at any of the presenting roles he'd been given had not so far impeded the progress of his new career.

Whether Mick ‘The Cobra' Mesquito was any good at pantomime remained to be seen. But his fellow Broker's Man Charles Paris was not overly optimistic.

Kenny Polizzi was remarkably affable at rehearsals. He didn't play the big star. He didn't seem worried that, in spite of his top billing, Baron Hardup was a relatively small part in the Cinderella story. Maybe he thought he'd achieved enough not to have anything to prove.

And when he was introduced to his fellow cast members, his modest charm was maintained. He twinkled for the girls, and was bonhomous to the boys. There was only one moment of slight awkwardness when he was introduced to Tad Gentry (‘from TV's
Frenton High
'). The younger actor gave the star a huge bear-hug and said, ‘Great to see you again, Kenny.'

This prompted a look of puzzlement. ‘Have we met before?'

‘Yes. In LA. At the premiere of that Julia Roberts movie.'

Kenny shook his head. ‘Sorry, don't recall it.'

The disruption was a very minor one. Kenny had been perfectly courteous, but the peevish expression on Tad's face showed he felt he'd been the victim of a major public snub.

Kenny's lack of starriness did not mean, however, that there were no conflicts at rehearsal. Though the imported big name was behaving himself, there were plenty of others in the company who were capable of making trouble.

The two soap stars, for a start, didn't see eye to eye. Tilly Marcus reckoned that because she was still currently in
Gatley Road
, this gave her automatic superiority over Tad Gentry, whose regular role as sexy villain in
Frenton High
had been curtailed by a spectacular fictional motorbike crash some three years previously. Also, Tilly was playing the name part in
Cinderella
, which by her reckoning meant she was the show's real star. And being the star gave her automatic full flouncing rights.

Nor was there much warmth between Tad and his fellow Ugly Sister. A large man whose bulky body tapered down to very tiny feet, Danny Fitz was a legend amongst
aficionados
of pantomime. His dame was mentioned in the same breath as those giants of the role, Dan Leno, Nat Jackley, Arthur Askey, Billy Dainty and Jack Tripp. But such names meant little to the contemporary television-obsessed world.

Nor did the traditional pantomime routines over which Danny Fitz had such mastery. Previously, whenever he'd done
Cinderella
, his fellow Ugly Sister had been a comic actor called Bobby Crowther. Though both had been gay, their partnership had never been anything but professional. In fact they hadn't even liked each other very much, but the magic they created together on stage was hailed by audiences and critics alike. With Bobby's death the previous year, this was the first time Danny was doing the Ugly Sisters without him.

And Tad was not proving the ideal substitute. Like many soap stars, he couldn't actually act … or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he could only act one part and that was himself. Which was fine and indeed simplified the process of the soap-opera production line whereby endless indistinguishable scenes were being recorded at great speed, but it didn't help a lot when Tad was playing an Ugly Sister.

He made no attempt even to change his voice. Each time Danny suggested that he might try a bit of falsetto, Tad would say, ‘No, if I do that, my fans won't know it's me.'

‘But they'll be able to see it's you.'

‘No, I'm not putting on a funny voice.'

‘It's not a funny voice,' said Danny, his large body looming over Tad. ‘It's a voice that's right for the character.'

‘No, that's not the way I work.'

This kind of disagreement could have been sorted out by a strong director, but Bix Rogers didn't fit that job description. Showing his background as a choreographer, the only bits of
Cinderella
that really interested him were the musical numbers. He lavished rehearsal time and attention on those and basically reckoned the actors could work out the dialogue scenes on their own.

This behaviour was not as unusual in pantomime as it might have been in other areas of theatrical performance. Pantomime scripts had always been rather fluid, passed on year by year. Charles Paris remembered being in an
Aladdin
in which the gap between two songs was simply marked ‘Trombone Biz'. It turned out that the previous year's Abanazar had been an elderly comic whose speciality was a routine with a trombone, which had been duly shoehorned into the story. The year Charles was in it, the Abanazar was an elderly comic whose shtick was making animals out of balloons. No doubt, the gap between the two songs in the following year's script read ‘Balloon Biz'.

Pantomime songs also frequently had very little relevance to the story that was being told. In the days of music hall, comedians in pantomimes would simply insert the songs that were a regular part of their act. And in the age of pop stars a slot was usually found for the character's latest single. While the number was belted out, the plot would simply be put on hold.

The situation wasn't quite that bad in the Empire Theatre Eastbourne's
Cinderella
. There was a basic script and there was even reputed to be a writer. Certainly someone must have created the routine in which Kenny Polizzi used all of his
Dwight House
catchphrases. And the songs, though not original, had been standards chosen more or less to fit in with the mood at various points in the storyline.

The exception to this of course was the song that Cinderella sang when left alone in the kitchen after her father and the Ugly Sisters had gone off to Prince Charming's ball. Normally for this moment a wistful ballad of loneliness is selected, but the Empire Theatre production was scheduled to feature the single from Tilly Marcus's first album, which had only recently been released. Called ‘Dance With Your Body', its connection to the
Cinderella
story was tenuous to say the least, but it did give Bix Rogers a wonderful opportunity to choreograph a big number with a chorus of rats, mice, kettles and saucepans.

At the afternoon tea break of that Wednesday's rehearsal Danny Fitz was clearly still very upset about having to work with Tad Gentry. He slumped wearily into a seat next to Charles. ‘God, what I thought was going to be my dream job is clearly going to be a nightmare from start to finish.'

‘Why was it so much your dream job?' asked Charles.

‘Well, I always love doing the Sisters. They're different from other dames, because most of those are basically benign characters. But no, the Ugly Sisters are pure evil. Oh, they may get forgiven at the end of the story and they may have lines during the Walkdown where they say they're going to reform, but don't believe a word of it. They're at least as bad as Regan and Goneril – to whom of course they bear an uncanny resemblance … you know, if you think of King Lear as Baron Hardup, the Fool as Buttons, Edmund as the Demon King – oh,
King Lear
really works as a panto. But that's by the by.'

‘So it's because you like playing an evil character that this is your dream job?'

‘Well, partly that, but also geography.'

‘Sorry?'

‘I actually live here in Eastbourne.'

‘Oh, do you?'

‘Yes, I run a very neat little B&B, you know, to keep the pennies coming in when the National Theatre fails to ring yet again. I really just do the pantos these days. Used to do summer season as well, but that's dead in the water now. They don't want variety bills any more. Why bother? Much cheaper to set up a tour for some foul-mouthed comedian off the telly, have him effing and blinding round all the number-one venues. Yes, so it's great for me that this show's in Eastbourne. Not so great that I've been paired up with Tad Gentry. I've seen planks of wood with more acting talent than he's got.'

‘But presumably you knew this was going to be difficult – the first year you've done the Ugly Sisters without Bobby Crowther.'

‘Maybe, but surely they could have cast someone with some instinct for panto. I mean I know any number of old actors who could be brought out of retirement and do better than Tad. He's just destroying everything I've worked for all these years. He and Kenny Polizzi are ruining what I'm trying to do. God, I'd like to kill the bloody pair of them!' Danny concluded with petulant bitterness.

In spite of the level of textual embroidery going on elsewhere in the show, Charles Paris, as one of the Broker's Men, tended to stick to the script as written. This was partly because Mick ‘The Cobra' Mesquito, whose hold on the lines was never going to be strong, might be thrown by any changes in his cues, but also because Charles wasn't that keen on improvisation. His distaste for it dated back to a long three months he'd spent with one of those directors who say their scripts are ‘created in the mutual white heat of improvisation with their ensemble', and then claim for themselves all the royalties for the published text and subsequent productions.

The play that emerged was too long (as improvised shows always are) and would have been better with a writer giving some shape to it (as improvised shows always would). It was set on a failing family farm in Devon and Charles had bleached all recollection of it out of his mind. All recollection that is except for the review he got from the
Hampstead and Highgate Express
. ‘It was hard to tell whether Charles Paris's curled nostril was a response to the farmyard smells or to the script.'