‘It’s about laughter, fun and colour':  Cork's Catherine Mahon Buckley on 30 years of pantos

Panto veteran Catherine Mahon Buckley is directing her 30th pantomime at the Everyman Palace Theatre this year.

Despite its huge popularity and success over the years, when the Cork woman looks back to that very first panto, she re being genuinely concerned they may not break even.

“I New Year’s Eve that year thinking, oh my god, I can’t even afford to buy tights,” she says.

Not long before that, Catherine had set up her own drama school, CADA.

While the Everyman had hosted pantos for some time, financial constraints meant they couldn’t host one that year.

“Ted [Catherine’s husband who was on the board of the Everyman Theatre] came home to me and said ‘would you take it on?’

“And I looking at him, because we had about £200 in our bank ... and I ed... because... I am not sure if you would describe it as adventurous or stupid,” she says.

While it would be Catherine’s first year in the director’s chair, the stage was certainly not new to the Cork woman.

With both her parents involved in the performing arts, perhaps unsurprisingly Catherine started attending pantos at a young age.

“I had gone with the preconception of what the fairy godmother should look like,” she said, itting that from that day to this if they don’t match, she would be very disappointed.

What should the fairy godmother look like?

“So she had to be beautiful, you know, very feminine. A dress with pinks and white and blonde hair, because I had blonde hair, so that would have been very much important.

“Her speaking voice would have been something that I would have gravitated to as well,” she adds.

Early introduction to the arts 

Catherine became involved in the arts at an early age and while it would be easy to imagine she’d always pictured a career in that sphere given her parents’ background, this wasn’t necessarily the case.

“I loved the arts and I was good at it,” Catherine says, adding this was of course one factor in her pursuit of a career in the sector, but she did consider other options.

“I was very interested in medicine and law,” she explains.

It was watching other people though, like Eileen Nolan, Michael McCarthy and John O’Shea, and how they shared their love of what they did, that steered Catherine towards the theatre.

“They share their love of what they have. And it brings out the love that you have,” she says.

Catherine’s first real experience of pantos from the other side of the stage came when she played the evil stepmother in Cork Opera House’s Back to the Future.

“I loved playing that yeah,” she recalls, “Frank Mackey was the Prince at the time and, and we, we just had a great time.

“Gerry Barnes was in charge there. And Gerry was a fantastic mentor to me as well and really looked out for me and, you know, gave me professional work when he was able to,” she says.

When it came to directing her first panto, Catherine called on her friends and colleagues and anyone who could help to get it across the line.

“I got a team together. I it was 24 in the chorus,” Catherine says.

Among the first to be recruited was her mother, who was a dress designer, and her close friend Ann Burton, who ed away earlier this year, and had been a seamstress with the Everyman for many years.

“Ann was a great friend,” Catherine says.

The Cork woman drafted in her father for the programmes.

Even her husband’s band had a role.

“Ted used to play in a band at the time as well as kind of a commercial band, you know, where they did weddings,” she recalls.

Catherine put everything into that panto, and more.

And it paid off.

“The budget came in. OK, there was nothing left, but we could pay people. And so the story began,” she says.

Changes through the years 

Those early pantos were something of a different beast to the modern-day show.

Audience participation was a much bigger part then, Catherine says.

She recalls one performance where the ugly sisters were fighting and when one ran through the audience, a seven-year-old put his leg out to trip him up, telling him it served him right.

The cast is much smaller now than previously, live animals have been replaced with actors dressed as animals, and health and safety is certainly a bigger consideration than it was when Catherine directed her first pantomime.

“Jokes that you could do, say 10 years ago, you couldn’t do them now,” she adds, cautioning however that people shouldn’t take pantos too seriously.

The premise has, however, remained the same.

“You have the title, be it Red Riding Hood, be it Cinderella, be it Jack and the Beanstalk. You have the storyline..It’s like a tree. You have branches that go off and you’d have what I call the ‘what if’.

“But always make sure you touch base with the tree trunk and go back off again,” Catherine explains.

These branches can change with each generation.

“For the children, more often than not, their parents have read that story [to them] and so therefore, they’re coming with that preconception like what goes back to me, to my own childhood. That preconceived notion. And you don’t want to shatter that. I think that would be very wrong,” Catherine says.

“There’s branches and like every five years, , you have a different generation, and you will have new people. You’ll also have different things will change,” she adds.

Some of these changes are more unexpected than others.

“I when we came back [the first panto after the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic]. That first year, people were afraid to shout out...but we’re coming around.”

There have been some innovations of late too, and Catherine singles out the advent of the relaxed, ISL-interpreted, and audio-described performances.

“When we do sit around the table to sort the practical aspects, the feel good factor around the table is phenomenal from the actors to the technical people, front of house, you know, it brings out the best of them.”

'Sunshine all the way'

Last year, the Everyman panto had its first female dame – a role performed by Fionula Linehan.

“She went down a bomb last year and she’s playing granny this year,” Catherine adds.

Rehearsals for the panto get underway in early January but, given it takes a year to get a panto together, consideration is already being given to the 2025 shows.

As Catherine looks ahead to this year’s performances, she says there are some key elements that every panto must include.

“The storyline, the audience participation... and slapstick

“It’s about laughter, fun and colour, costumes, sets.

“It’s all about everything that sparkles and that we want in our lives...

“You know yourself when you wake up and if it’s gloomy you kind of feel you have to really push ahead.

“If the sun is shining, you’re shining. So panto...it’s sunshine all the way.”

This article appears in this year's Holly Bough.

The 2024 Holly Bough is now on sale and can be purchased here.