AS a child, I used to be taken each year to the pantomime at the London Palladium. One year, it would be Cliff Richard in Cinderella, with Hugh Lloyd and Terry Scott as the Ugly Sisters.
The next year, it would be Engelbert Humperdinck as Robinson Crusoe, singing Please Release Me from inside a cage, having been imprisoned by natives in grass skirts.
I enjoyed everything about these pantomimes – the glossy programmes, the colourful sets, the ice cream at interval, the multiple changes of costume, the chance to see a big TV star like Richard or Humperdinck live onstage, and, miraculously, in full colour rather than black and white.
I liked the dance numbers, with cheery rustics twirling bright umbrellas, and I liked the slapstick routines, particularly when Widow Twankey (generally played by Arthur Askey) would put her head around the door just as a custard-pie came winging its way across the kitchen.
But – call me stand-offish – one aspect of the pantomime would always fill me with the deepest dread: audience participation. Just as you had settled back in your seat, ready to be entertained, Richard or Humperdinck or Little Arthur Askey would step to the front of the stage, shout out a question, wait for an answer and then cup his ear, saying: “I can’t hear you!”
The set answer was “Behind you!” Simple enough, you may think, but it was never loud enough for the performer, so you’d be forced to say it again. And again.
And it didn’t stop there. Far from it: Towards the end, long after all the various elements of the plot had been resolved – the discarded slipper placed on the appropriate foot, the Ugly Sisters shamed, the overlooked Buttons putting on a brave face as his former friend Cinders dons a tiara and drives off in a sparkly carriage with the admittedly very wealthy but surely rather effeminate Prince Charming – a large scroll would descend from the rafters, inscribed with the lyrics of a communal song.
“Now it’s time for all you lovely little boys and girls to do your bit!” Widow Twankey would say, and we would all be forced to sing along at the very top of our voices. Doubtless some of my fellow children relished the opportunity to do their bit.
I, on the other hand, couldn’t wait for the nightmare to pass.
These childhood memories came flooding back as I read about a concert given in Sydney at the end of last week by the demanding rapper Kanye West. He has never been a shrinking violet – he once confessed that his greatest regret was that he would never be able to see himself perform live – but on that particular evening he was even more bullish than usual.
“I can’t do this show until everybody stands up,” he told the crowd. Unless you got a handicap pass and you get special parking and s**t.” He then waited for everybody to get on to their feet, warning them that he would be able to spot anyone sitting down. “I’m a see you if you ain’t standin’ up, believe me, I’m very good at that.”
It was at this point that it turned a bit nasty. The eagle-eyed rapper spotted two people to the right of the stage who had remained seated and refused to sing his next song until they had got to their feet. The rest of the audience, all dutifully standing, now collectively turned on the two sitters, chanting “Get up! Get up! Get up!”
The non-participants were, as it happens, both disabled, and unable to stand. One of them removed her prosthetic limb and held it in the air, presumably in lieu of a doctor’s certificate. ‘Okay, you fine,’ said West, obligingly. But the other fan remained seated.
“This is the longest I’ve had to wait to do a song, it’s unbelievable,” he huffed, like a furious teacher telling his class they’ll all have to do detention if the culprit doesn’t come forward.
Some of the crowd nearby made wheelchair movements with their arms, but West refused to proceed until his bodyguard Pascal Duvier had carried out a spot-check. Only when Duvier had confirmed that, yes, the suspect was indeed in a wheelchair did Kanye proceed with his song.
For the life of me, I can’t remember Little Arthur Askey employing these methods. Even if he had spotted me through those thick horn-rimmed glasses of his with my mouth firmly shut, he would never have called the show to a halt, or sent an Ugly Sister down to check to see if I was a bona-fide deaf-mute.
But these days audience participation is a compulsory sport. West may have taken performer bossiness to a new level, but there is a widespread assumption that the audience is subservient to the performer.
The old adage has been reversed: nowadays, it is the piper who calls the tune, and he who pays the piper is obliged to follow instructions. Going to a concert is like going to a PE class, with the poor old cash-strapped audience obediently waving their arms or singing along while up onstage the millionaire barks out the orders. – Daily Mail