On paper, it sounded like commercial suicide. Who would programme a lecture on a Sunday afternoon in January and expect more than half a dozen folk to turn up? And in one of Glasgow’s biggest theatres? Yet there we were, watching crowds file into the Pavilion. It was stowed out. The reason? Johnny McKnight, heir to Scotland’s panto crown, was in the house (and in full dame dress) to talk about the traps and traditions of this most popular of artforms.

This was the second airing of She’s Behind You. The first had been at the University Of Glasgow where McKnight had been invited to talk in memory of the late academic Alasdair Cameron. In the guise of Dorothy Blawna-Gale, he had reflected on pantomime’s capacity to be both reactionary and radical. Working at Stirling’s Macrobert and Glasgow’s Tron, he had learned how to be fresh and inclusive. Oh, and very, very funny. Even in this script-in-hand form, McKnight and his director John Tiffany had a hit on their hands. And so, She’s Behind You became the riotous centrepiece of the Traverse’s Edinburgh Fringe programme. 

Main picture: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan. 

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