Fine Times in Oldham

Lighting up the streets of Oldham - in more ways than one!

The windscreen wipers were working overtime and the headlights peered through the misty motorway spray as we drove around the M56 and M60 from Hale Barns to Oldham on the other side of Manchester. It was New Year’s Eve and we were off to make our annual pilgrimage to the Oldham Coliseum Theatre having driven from Nottingham to spend New Year with our daughter and her family. We didn’t mind the dreadful weather because we knew that once at the theatre we would enter a magical world where motorways and bad weather would be forgotten. Once we had parked our car and made our way up tiny Fairbottom Street we would quite forget Oldham’s road works and be welcomed into a bright, cosy and heart warming world of fun and make believe. We were not going to some great theatre, some London Palladium or La Scala Opera House. Nor were we going to see some great stars parading their egos and plugging their latest song. We were going to be entertained and transported to a world of fun, innocence, smiles and one heck of a lot of hard work on the part of the cast – and indeed all at the theatre.

Ready for the show!

For the past seven or eight years we have taken our two  granddaughters to see the pantomime at the Coliseum and what started as a one off event has become part of our family Christmas. We first went when the two girls were really too young to know what was going on but now they and we join in with the singing and the calling out like every other child and  adult in the audience .....”He’s behind you” we all scream. “Oh no he isn’t”......... Oh yes he is”. We know the words well, we know what is coming, we know that the bucket of custard is going to fall on Button’s head, we boo the nasty Ugly Sisters, we join in the “corny” songs with gusto – and like every other member of the five hundred or so audience we love it! I’m not a “panto person” – but I have to confess that the afternoon at the Coliseum each New Year’s Eve is one of my year’s highlights. Once summer is over I soon start thinking about going on line to book some tickets for us all – a family outing on New Year’s Eve!

And I am too!

Every single  production we have attended over the years has been wonderful. This year was particularly enjoyable. Other members of the audience sitting near us made similar comments as the curtain fell for the final time and we all pulled on our coats and gloves  knowing  that we had to leave the magical world of Cinderella behind and venture out  into Oldham’s dark, wet streets and the less than wonderful world of the M60! “Worth every penny” I commented as we walked down Fairbottom Street. And worth Pat’s and my 200 mile round trip from Nottingham to be in Manchester. I read in the programme that next year we can see Jack and the Beanstalk – I already feel a visit to the on-line booking department coming on!

Fine Time and the Ugly Sisters

But what is it about the pantomime at Oldham that we (and, I think, everyone else) loves so much? For me it is several things. Firstly, the theatre itself. As you walk up the little street, no more than a darkly lit side street the brightly lit theatre is like a welcoming beacon. It speaks of tradition. The Coliseum was born in 1885 starting its life as a home for a circus and in its time it has hosted some of the stage greats – Charlie Chaplin, Thora Hird, Eric Sykes Dora Bryan and others have stood on its stage. It is from an age when the theatre, music hall and silent films were  all. It speaks of ordinary people getting their entertainment not from a sterile plasma screen and high tech 3D but from real people.  Ordinary Oldham folk paid their few pennies to be entertained by silent films or a non-stop  programme of plays and other entertainments - in the hard life of the early 20^th century to  have an hour or so of bright lights and fun was perhaps a relief from the drab streets and long hours worked in the cotton mills of this north Manchester town. It even has its own ghost – an actor who incurred the curse of Macbeth many years ago and is still reputed to be seen occasionally in the theatre!  In years gone by there were as many as twelve similar places in the Oldham area – I can remember the same situation in the town where I grew up, Preston,  just a few miles up the road from Oldham. Now only the Coliseum survives – and it is still doing what it has done best for over a century - making people smile or cry, taking themselves out of their world, bringing great literature, drama and make believe to the people - and on the day we were there, on this New Year’s Eve’s drab, windy and wet afternoon providing a beacon of warmth and fun. When we entered the cramped foyer the staff, as  always, were welcoming – the programme seller who happily ran upstairs to get more programmes when I asked for three and sold me them with a real smile and word of welcome. The house manager standing – as we have seen him each year - in his highly decorated waistcoat, welcomed us as we came through the doors – directing us to the cosy bar where we enjoyed not a designer cup of coffee but a mug, steaming hot. It may not have gone down well and La Scala or even the Nottingham Royal Centre where fancy glasses and cups are the order of the day – but it was good and wholesome, warm and friendly - welcoming. It was a real place staffed by real people! And we had come to see a pantomime – we were attracted by the entertainment not by some great star who happened to be in a pantomime. So often I see seats being sold because of the “big names” in the show – we do love our celebrities don’t we – but here it was Cinderella and the Coliseum that was selling the tickets not the leading man or lady!

Buttons never stopped

And the show built on this – real people, ordinary, hard working people either on the stage or behind the scenes. Throughout the afternoon I sat there thinking , as I did a few weeks ago, when I watched the great Simon Callow in London perform Dickens (see blog “Beautiful and Magical”) how do these people keep this up. Giving their all for two or three hours – and then having to raise themselves again a couple of hours later to repeat their performance to the next audience.  Awe inspiring and at the same time humbling. As I said on my Simon Callow blog it puts the pathetic utterances of Premiership footballers, cricketers or tennis players  and indeed Olympic athletes into perspective when they have to produce one great performance a week or once or twice a year!

Prince Charming

The cast – to a man and a woman - were superb. How did Buttons keep up his hectic performance and still be racing about, smiling and encouraging the audience after two and half hours? How did the Ugly Sisters maintain their horridness (and their vocal chords!) to the very end? How did the troupe of local youngsters who formed the dancers keep going so long, never missing a step and with smiles on their faces that dropped not one jot? How did Liz Carney doubling up as both the fairy Godmother and Dandini keep going with so much enthusiasm and success right to the end! Every single person on the stage - the Prince, Dandini, Cinderella and the rest looked as if they were putting everything into it and enjoying it so much – and so did we.

Such tasteful dresses!

But above them all – and maybe because of him – was Fine Time Fontayne! This wonderfully named man (Ian Crossley, when not using his stage name) was, as always, supreme. Vastly experienced on stage and TV Fine Time dominated the show with his magnificent presence and his splendid voice as the Dame – Baroness Bunty Hardup! Resplendent in outrageous  and extravagantly wonderful costumes  he was not only the star but also co-wrote the production - and indeed was the show’s heart and soul. From the moment he made his first entry the audience were with him and from previous years we all knew what to expect – gentle humour, long looks at the audience, good family fun that made us all feel better. No dubious, unnecessary and unseemly double entendres, no charmless asides or the unpleasant language that seems to constitute so much of what is sadly, today, believed to be humour. Just good honest fun delivered by a true comedian and great actor.

Ian Crossley aka Fine Time Fontayne

Watching Fine Time is to watch a true master at work. True masters – be they carpenters, brain surgeons, top footballers, builders, teachers or artists.....or indeed any other highly skilled craftsman have one capacity above all others - they always look comfortable in what they are about. They have time, they are always operating within their comfort zone. To watch the great Bobby Moore or Bobby Charlton play football in their prime was to see true masters – they never got into trouble when they had the ball at their feet, never had to make a rushed or hectic last minute tackle to make up for a mistake – they had always anticipated, read the game and taken the necessary steps to eliminate the danger before it happened. It is a similar story when we watch great surgeon at work – never flustered, always in charge. Over the years I have sat at the back of classrooms to watch teachers at work – and the one thing that characterised the truly successful?  - they never looked under pressure, had always anticipated what was going to happen, always in charge, ahead of very child sitting in front of them. The less gifted when under pressure look harassed and unready and that is when they make mistakes are less successful. In the modern world Barack Obama has the capacities of a master but David Cameron does not – hence his outbursts in the House of Commons and his tendency to become irritable and red faced when under pressure from other MPs.

Cinderella

Fairy Godmother

 Fine Time Fontayne has the same characteristic – he was so much in charge that he not only was totally on top of his part but had the time to keep the rest of the cast on track - not that they needed it. He was the master of the stage and the whole theatre. I swear that had he wanted to he could have served ice creams, shown any latecomers to their seats and sold programmes whilst still performing his part - and all without missing a cue! On his first entry, the audience drew in breath at his extravagant costume – but more than that, even before he spoke a word he had a presence and we in the audience who had seen him on other occasions knew that something great was coming........ . And so it was – a wonderful afternoon of sparkling entertainment delivered by a set of great actors who gave it everything they had. And, as the final curtain came down at just before five o’clock I commented that when we got home and relaxed and enjoyed our evening meal and a New Year drink these people would be starting again for the evening performance – making another five hundred people smile and forget their daily cares. Worth every penny that we paid and worth every penny that they earned.

And as we pushed through the thronging foyer to leave the theatre and emerge into the dark streets of Oldham, the House Manager was still standing there, resplendent in his waistcoat, bidding everyone good bye and a "Happy New Year" and smiling as we went out into the late afternoon gloom and damp. The Oldham Coliseum has been around for more than a century. I’m sure that its founders in those far off Victorian times would be pleased that it is still not only going strong but providing such a wonderful focus for life and entertainment in the area. The local paper the Oldham Chronicle said “The best traditional pantomime you are likely to see in the region” – indeed it is. You will not see finer anywhere – we all had a fine time with Fine Time! The people of Oldham are very lucky to have this facility to enjoy - and so were we to be there.