Returns to the Tabard after 25 years in a marvellously modern, radical revival & first production shots are out!
Look Behind You? Look who’s back!
Five-star company Strut & Fret & their hit show Look Behind You returns to Theatre at the Tabard again, Wednesday 17th January to Saturday 3rd February 2024. Get ready for the cross-dressing, thigh-slapping, wise-cracking world of pantomime, where monkeys talk, dreams come true and people are hit but never hurt...Now look behind the scenes… at the bad-mouthing, two-timing, pill-popping pressure cooker that is backstage reality.
Look Behind You follows the ups and largely downs, of a professional theatre company staging the stock panto Dick Whittington in a godforsaken seaside town. While the ‘happy-ever-after’ panto plays onstage, we see the behind-the-scenes reality. The Britannia Theatre is falling down. Nothing works. There’s no money, no support, no hope. This is the end of the road, the end of the pier. The developers and foreign investors are circling…
Look Behind You is not only a contemporary metaphor for the state of our nation but, more merrily, an antidote to the classic seasonal slush. Staged in January, immediately after everyone else has produced their traditional panto, it reveals the grit and graft behind the glitz and glitter. Is the nation’s sweetheart really so sweet? How can one entertain other people’s kids hundreds of miles from one’s own? Is Dick really an ideal partner for Pussy?
The theme and tone of the original Look Behind You returns as strong as before, but Daniel Wain’s considerable rewrite reflects how much has changed in the intervening 25 years. In addition, Marc Brenner, the director of the original 1999 Look Behind You and now one of British theatre’s leading photographers, returns to shoot the new production and first production shots are now out, while Flavia Fraser-Cannon an assistant stage manager on the 1999 show, returns as PR consultant. So much has changed, some things remain the same…
So seize the dame! Sneak under the curtain and steam open this poisoned love letter to the theatre: the bitchiest, barmiest, bravest business of them all.
‘Look Behind You’- Wednesday 17th January to Saturday 3rd February 2024
Further Information: Look Behind You – Theatre at the Tabard