I LEARNED to cook Indian cuisine at scouts - and have the bhajis to prove it

F course it’s about sex,” I bellowed, hurling the dog-eared script to the ground in a show of disgust.

There was a silence. Other cast members shuffled uncomfortably.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and attempted to fight my corner, calmly and rationally. “This is Little Red Riding Hood for the 2020s. The wolf is a crack cocaine dealer.”

“Hence,” ventured Malcolm the panto director, “such lines as ‘the crack pipe’s behind you’ and ‘my, what a big stash of Class A drugs you’ve got’?”

“Exactly!” I shrieked. “Little Red Riding Hood is forced to turn to prostitution to feed her habit, forced to satisfy the depraved lust of her pimp...”

“Who is the wolf,” nodded Malcolm.

There was a silence. Church organist Miss Frobisher – Little Red Riding Hood in our parish production – coughed nervously.

She’s concerned the last scene, in a fetish dungeon, may compromise her position as Brown Owl in the Brownie pack.

I believe it’s appropriate – and gives her a chance to show her dexterity with knots.

In reality, the artistic differences have added to the problems of staging our first online production, a move dictated by the pandemic.

Early rehearsals, conducted through Zoom meetings, have proved no easier. “For God’s sake,” Miss Frobisher, the director bellowed, “you’re on mute again. Hover your mouse over the microphone symbol and...”

After an age, Miss Frobisher asked: “Should we wear PPE for the orgy scene?”

This week, during the first physical meeting of cast members, I warned: “We can either play it safe or stage a production that really means something to the kids out there. This is a warning about what can happen...”

“If you go into the woods and buy illegal drugs off wolves,” interrupted Malcolm, his face wreathed in an irritating smile.

“For your information, there is only one drug dealer in these parts...”

“That’s me,” shouted Mr Lowe, the village pharmacist.

“...and no wolves.”“In the past,

Mike,” he sighed, “we have successfully side-stepped your earthy interpretations of panto classics. Snow White was positively X rated.”

“You can’t tell me there wasn’t something funny going on in that house,” I protested.

“You wanted to arm Robin Hood with an Uzi, Jack’s magic beans were replaced by hallucinagenic drugs...” “It’d explain the giant,” I said. “...and we won’t even go into what Aladdin wished for.”

“This latest script,” Malcolm growled, “is brave, I’ll grant you that. However, you’re aware we traditionally open with a show for residents of The Pines nursing home. They’re taken out on Wednesday afternoons to have their hair done. I think the chances of them being introduced to crack cocaine during those outings are pretty remote, Mike.”

“They’re the worst,” I protested. “I’ve been to The Pines and quite a few of them are definitely on something. You can see it in their eyes, they’re totally out of it.”

“I remember last year...,” I added.

“So do we,” Malcolm sighed, “particularly the heckler you rounded on.”

“He was waving his arms about and moaning all the way through the first act,” I pointed out.

“He was having a fit, Mike.” We’ve always gone down well at The Pines. Last time, it was 45 minutes before the audience left the hall.

He hadn’t a clue how to use that Zimmer frame.

Sadly, I fear my latest work, Little Red Light In The Hood, will be sanitised to the point of only being fit for children.

When the audience shout “behind you”, would they rather see a wolf or the drugs squad? I know which has more dramatic impact.

I encountered the same resistance when trying to portray Mother Goose going through cold turkey. I don’t know why – laying a golden egg and withdrawing from heroin are both uncomfortable experiences.

“Shall we ask the Big Bad Wolf what he thinks of it?” I demanded, turning to 64-year-old Mr Timmins.

He took off his thick glasses and rubbed them before admitting: “It all seems jolly exciting. I just hope I can learn to moonwalk before opening night. That’ll be a real test of the new hip.”

He scrutinised page five – a passage he’d previously laboured with in rehearsals – cleared his throat and took it from the top.

“Yo,” he boomed in a plumy accent, “my birch is getting lazy...”

“It’s ‘bitch’,” I bellowed, “and there’s no need to hold your walking stick aloft.”

Miss Frobisher pushed her glasses onto the bridge of her nose and trilled: “Just give me another fix, if that’s not too much trouble. Thank you most kindly.”

“You’re ad-libbing!” I shouted.

“Let’s try it again, and this time don’t say, ‘frightfully kind of you’ when he hands over the wrap.”

“The language, the setting, the props are wholly inappropriate,” tutted Malcolm, shaking his head.

“The only positive thing I can say for this play is that it has attracted sponsorship, particularly the final scene.”

“Where Little Red Riding Hood is seen huddled on the bare floor of her home, sobbing while clutching a crack pipe?” I asked.

“That’s the one. R.J Stone and Son plumbers have confirmed they want to place an ad in the panto programme: ‘Cracked pipes this winter?

Turn to a name you can trust.”

MY son has struggled domestically since purchasing his own property.

As he puts it: “You wash and clean and six months later you’ve got to do it all again. What’s the point?”

My wife makes weekly trips to fumigate, but after that our son’s on his own.

Cooking is the real source of concern.

“I’ve bought a cook book,” he moaned, “but I haven’t been able to follow a single recipe.” “Are they too hard?” I asked.