I lost a STONE wearing my 14 heavy costumes
ANDREW RYAN AND DOREEN TIPTON TELL ROZ LAWS ABOUT THEIR STARRING ROLES IN THE BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME’S
IT’S not often that an actor stops an interview to adjust their outfit in quite such an intimate way.
“Excuse me, but my knickers are falling down,” says Andrew Ryan, before seeking help from a wardrobe assistant to lift up his heavy dress and delve beneath his underskirts to his frilled underwear.
This is just one of the challenges of playing a pantomime Dame, which Andrew is well used to tackling after 36 pantos in total and 32 as the dame.
This year he’s back for his sixth Birmingham Hippodrome panto, playing Felicity Fitzwarren in Dick Whittington. He’s part of an all-star cast that includes Marti Pellow, Matt Slack, Dr Ranj Singh, Suzanne Shaw and Doreen Tipton.
The audience never gets to see the hardest part of Andrew’s job – all the backstage quick changes into his 14 elaborate costumes, eight of which he designed himself.
He says: “A lot of my work during the show is hidden, which is part of the magic of panto. That’s the really physical stuff for me, not the slapstick on stage. I am running around taking off the layers and getting helped into and out of costumes. I need my own dresser waiting in the wings, otherwise I wouldn’t appear. My quickest change is under 30 seconds, being clipped into frocks using magnets and slapping on another wig before getting back out on stage.
“All this dashing about, and dancing in heavy costumes meant that last year I lost more than a stone in weight and I had to have my skirts taken in three times. But when I went to try my crinolines again this year, they wouldn’t fit. I’ve gone back to my resting weight.”
As well as designing costumes, Andrew also does all his own extravagant make-up, complete with the longest of false eyelashes.
“I wear glasses now but I have to take them off to do my eye makeup, so I can’t see very well,” he admits. “I’ve just bought a really good five times magnifying mirror with lights round it and I’m delighted with my purchase.”
As such a pantomime veteran – he will also direct this year’s panto in Bromley starring Anton Du Beke – he’s in a perfect position to muse on how the art form has changed over the years.
“Pantos always evolve, they never stay still,” he says. “They’ve always used the music of the day, so that changes. Technically they advance
– there’s always massive technical stuff in the Birmingham shows with fantastic lighting and effects. The sentiment and values move forward.
“I think there will always be Dames, but they are very specific to panto. It’s not the same as being a drag artist. I’m still very much a man playing a woman, without a drag queen’s femininity and glamour. My frocks can be glamorous but they’re absurd and one step
beyond, and I’m the butt of jokes.”
Andrew first appeared at the Hippodrome in 2012 and says acting with his regular co-stars Matt and Doreen is “like family”.
“We have a shorthand now which makes things easier. I love this theatre, it’s the perfect venue. The auditorium is beautiful and the stage is huge. The set and costumes are always the top. Everything is the best it can possibly be.”
Doreen Tipton also has a wonderfully comic costume, complete with furry tail, as Doreen the Cat in Dick Whittington. At least she doesn’t have any tricky outfit changes, which is one less thing to worry about.
Pantomime is hard work for the Black Country comedy character, the first person to be diagnosed 10 years ago with Lazy Cow Syndrome. She also claims to be dyslexic in one eye.
“How do I prepare for panto?” wonders Doreen, aka actress Gill Jordan, returning for her sixth panto and third at the Hippodrome. “I’ve been asleep for most of the year. Well, I am playing a cat, and I’m a method actor. Fortunately I love cats. I opened the West Midlands Cat Clinic in Walsall, you know.
“For the rest of the year I’m miserable and I have to gear myself up to be jolly and joyful, but I do enjoy myself during panto.”
Doreen has gone viral on social media with her caustic comments on everything from Brexit and claiming benefits to teachers, who she thinks should be employed as fruit pickers in the summer holidays because they only work for three months a year. She ran for Prime Minister on the promise of building a wall around the Black Country.
She’s starred in her own film with rock legend Robert Plant, written her autobiography and several books, hosted a radio show and completed six sell-out theatre tours. She has her
own YouTube channel, made a DVD documentary on the Black Country and was voted Best Newcomer at the Great British Panto Awards and Midlands Personality of the Year.
So is there anything left for the self-titled Queen of the Black Country to conquer?
“I’d like to see Doreen The Musical,” she declares. “Forget Hello Dolly, how about Hello Doreen? There’s plenty I can do. How about an opera, or a ballet? If a dance show is good enough for the Peaky Blinders… I’ll give anything a try.”
Dick Whittington plays Birmingham Hippodrome until January 29. Tickets can be booked at www.birminghamhippodrome. com or by calling 0844 338 5000