IN a brief break from rehearsals inside the venue where it all began for Johnny McKnight, Glasgow’s Mr Panto is glad of a breather.
“Ma heid is birling,” he says, laughing, slightly maniacally. “But it is all coming together. It’s going very well.”
Johnny’s sparkler of a Christmas show, Peter Panto and the Incredible Stinkerbell, opens at the Tron Theatre on Friday (November 22).
Johnny is playing the dame (the aforementioned Stinkerbell, a delightful if flatulent fairy), and he has also written the show, and directs.
“The Tron is the reason I wrote my first panto, actually,” he explains.
“I had never seen anything like the Tron Christmas show before – this was back when Forbes Masson was doing it, and before that, Peter Capaldi and Craig Ferguson.
“It was amazing. Forbes always talked about his panto world on stage as the ‘pantosphere’ and I remember thinking – I want that. I want to live in the pantosphere.”
He grins. “So I stole that from him, and Forbes knows that, I’ve told him.”
The Tron Christmas show is not like any other, he says.
“It’s rare to be able to see the back row when you’re doing panto,” says Johnny. “But at the Tron you can see every face in the audience.
“And the shout-outs.. when we did The Wizard of Oz, I think we did about 50, it was like a register in the end.
“I think we must have called out the name of virtually every single person in there.”
READ NEXT: First look at Glasgow TV blockbuster which stars Martin Compston
He adds: “It’s really special though. You can take a risk, push it a wee bit, and I like that. It’s always been that way, long before I was doing it.
“It’s always been a bit anarchic and I’m just keeping that tradition alive.”
Johnny grew up in Ardrossan in Ayrshire, and was in his first year of a law degree at Strathclyde University when he made the switch to acting.
His first role in panto came in 2004, when actor and writer Tony Roper cast him as the “daft laddie” in Dunfermline. He is now famous for creating some of Scotland's freshest and funniest pantos at both the Tron and the Macrobert Arts Centre in Stirling.
There is more to Johnny than panto – he wrote the 20th anniversary special of River City, and the book for the musical 101 Dalmatians, which is currently in Glasgow as part of its UK tour, plus he is working with Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson on a new musical based on their 90s sitcom hit The High Life.
READ MORE: 'I bring the gossip': Brookside and Taggart star on her new role in Glasgow
For now, however, it is all about panto, and he is loving revisiting Peter Panto and The Incredible Stinkerbell, which was first performed in 2013.
The story follows Peter as he whisks West End Wendy away from the safety of her Byres Road residence to a place full of treachery, deceit and chippies that never close. In Riverland, Peter and Wendy must face vengeful crocodiles, the evil Captain Hook and his bumbling side kick Chai Tea.
“It’s been reworked – you don’t want to be doing the same thing all the time,” says Johnny. “It’s also different because back then we had a female Hook, and this time he is male; and I’m playing Stinkerbell….and the songs are all new.
“Julie Wilson Nimmo is taking a year off this year, so we also have new cast members – we’ve got the amazing Star [Penders], Marc [Mackinnon], Robert [Jack] and Emma [Mullen], and Katie [Barnett] of course, who is a real stalwart ..we’re like a ragtag version of the Avengers.”
The cast are a small, hardworking and loyal team, says Johnny, proudly.
“It’s not like other pantos, where you can be sitting in your dressing room for 20 minutes at a time,” he adds. “There are only five of us, so there is so much to do.
“When we get the five-minute call, we’re all down to the stage together, and that’s really lovely.”
Johnny is particularly looking forward to bringing Stinkerbell, the magical, stinky and jealous fairy who is Peter Pan’s right-hand woman, to the stage.
“She’s basically me in my kitchen,” he deadpans. “I can’t wait.”
Peter Panto and The Incredible Stinkerbell is at the Tron Theatre from Friday, November 22 until January 5.
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here