Happy New Year as panto heaven beckons
After a break of some years, It’s time to return to pantoland
Ten productions in and with more still to see on my annual panto tour, so far I’ve seen a Rapunzel ft Puss In Boots, a Beauty & The Beast, two Snow Whites complete with Seven Dwarfs, a brace of Sleeping Beauties, one Peter Pan, a Sinbad, an Aladdin and a Cinderella. Quite a collection. Oh, yes it is!
However, with those all behind me now (I know, I know, sorry), I’ve started looking forward to the 2023/24 season, but then planning a panto is an all year round endeavour, and certainly not just for Christmas.
It’s been a while since I last wrote and directed panto but with more free time since parting company with the Evening News, in 2023 I intend to return to pantoland.
Recently I found these press reactions to my previous pantomimes squirrelled away in a forgotten archive while clearing out an old email address.
Do feel free to share them with anyone you know who might be looking for a writer or director. I’d be very grateful and who knows where you might find me next Christmas.
And talking of 2023, it’s not far away, so may I wish you a prosperous and peaceful New Year, may it bring you your every wish and desire.
Lang may yer lum reek!
Líam
WHAT THE PRESS SAID ABOUT LIAM RUDDEN'S PREVIOUS PANTOMIMES
2006/07 DICK McWHITTINGTON
"... this magnificent local pantomime... a near perfect treat" - Thom Dibdin, The Stage
"Liam Rudden, directing his own script, produces a little stormer here. Deftly paced, inventive and packed with incident..." - Steve Cramer, The List
"All told an excellent local pantomime... producing an exceptional Behind You routine... can have you weeping with laughter." - Drew McAdam, Edinburgh Evening News
2007/08 CINDERELLA
"Liam Rudden’s production bops along nicely with pop music, familiar routines and topical gags all spaced nicely throughout, overcoming a paucity of resources with pure gusto. .. shows a capacity for crowd-pleasing that should win over the most demanding patron." - Steve Cramer, The List
A bright local script with plenty for both schools and adult audiences marks out Liam Rudden’s new production... Great traditional fare, complete with sweetie shower and song sheet." - Thom Dibdin, The Stage
"Traditional pantomime values are clearly top of the agenda for the creative team behind last year's Dick McWhittington and they haven't failed to deliver." - Darren Scott, Edinburgh Evening News
2008 SLEEPING BEAUTY
"Little by little, and step by step, the Brunton Theatre at Christmas is becoming one of those precious places where every detail of the Scottish panto tradition is cherished, preserved, and reborn each year, in form fit to delight 21st century audiences. Writer/director Liam Rudden... has a near-perfect awareness of all the best aspects of panto, and of its special fairytale rhythm." - Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman
"Liam Rudden wisely reckons that there's a special, fond laughter to be found in making sly references with a recognisable connection to your audience. All-out, roof-raising responses prove that his efforts to keep familiar stamping grounds in the foreground is definitely appreciated. It helps, of course, that Rudden has a feel for the mechanics of panto. He can write nippy patter and introduce entertaining wheezes." - Mary Brennan, The Herald
"Liam Rudden’s relatively traditional panto shows some leg through the moments in this story which usually represent a sticking point." - Steve Cramer, The List
"Fabulous, Undiluted Nonsense - and that spells fun." - Drew McAdam, Edinburgh Evening News
"Writer and director Liam Rudden keeps his script fresh, while his magpie eye for old Scottish music hall routines adds sparkle." - Thom Dibdin, The Stage
2009/10 SINBAD AND THE LITTLE MERMAID
"Writer/director Liam Rudden and his team have created the kind of modest but totally effective local panto that it’s easy to underrate, so lightly does it carry huge and important elements of the panto tradition into the future... And above all, there’s the raucous, lively, rag-bag radical spirit of panto, turning the world upside down, and making it new." - Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman
"This panto is a ship-shape reminder that dash, not cash, is what matters." - Mary Brennan, The Herald
"... the sort of production that a young mer-girl would willingly swim over hot-coals to get to..." - Josie Balfour, Edinburgh Evening News
2010/11 MOTHER GOOSE
"There’s no panto in Scotland, these days, that makes a better job of setting a traditional tale in a local setting... They call Musselburgh the Honest Toun; and as usual, Liam Rudden has given the town a good honest panto..." - Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman
"The plot cleverly features a number of very grown-up themes, such as unrequited love, fading beauty and even, ever so slightly, domestic abuse without losing the childlike chaos at the core of all good pantomimes." - Kirsty Gibbins, East Lothian Courier
"Ever shifting in it's approach to Pantomime, the Brunton Theatre has this year embraced a very traditional format for it's festive fare. Harking back to the ensemble performances of ancient Greece and British Music Hall that have evolved into the format as we know it today, there is an edge of anarchic joy to the production." - Josie Balfour, Edinburgh Evening News
“Fully embracing the tried and trusted pantomime formula… this is yet another triumph for the Brunton… when something works this well, why change it?” – It’s On It’s Gone
2011/12 ALADDIN
"... writer/director Liam Rudden making sure the material hit all the appropriate spots for a young, fun-loving audience. That's easier said than done." - Mary Bennan, The Herald
"Scottish panto is alive and shouting in Musselburgh, where Liam Rudden’s sixth production for the Brunton Theatre hits all the right buttons with plenty of songs (both original and modified) and loads of audience participation. As writer and director, Rudden has a clear understanding of the demands of pantomime as a form. Pace (fast but not fleeting), plot (slight but sufficient) and local references (many and varied) are fine tuned..." - Thom Dibdin, The Stage
".. a second-act earthquaking-inducing dance number, was a joy and may well be the first use of a well-known 'Happy Hardcore' tune - to brilliant effect - in a county panto." - Kirsty Gibbins, East Lothian Courier
"Scotland has its share of pantos that boast big budgets and major star names; but if ever you wanted proof that money isn't everything in pantoland, then Liam Rudden's fine production of Aladdin is the show for you... it knows what many flashier pantos have forgotten; that if you focus on the story, get the timing right, deploy a few good local jokes and all the best panto devices, and believe just enough in the magic of it all, then you can create a good panto from the simplest of ingredients... one of the least pretentious and most enjoyable pantos of the year." - Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman
2012/13 CINDERELLA
"The combination of set, costume, live band, and clever lighting assaults your senses - in a good way. It is exactly like watching a huge cartoon, with all the colour and energy that invokes, coming alive before your very eyes." - Drew McAdam, Edinburgh Evening News
"The Alhambra at Dunfermline is a very handsome theatre, with a large stage and more than 1,000 seats. It's therefore a delight to see it once again staging its own full-scale panto, and a real pleasure to see that panto in the hands of Liam Rudden, who recently helped make the Musselburgh pantomime a strikingly successful local Christmas show... this show powers its way to a glittering conclusion." - Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman
"Writer and director Liam Rudden has moved into the large space of the Alhambra with all guns blazing..." -Thom Dibdin, The Stage
This is a big scale family show, there's plenty of singalong fun and live action for children while adults will enjoy any risqué humour, which safely sails over the kids' heads. Brilliant family fun. - Matt Meade, Dunfermline Press
"The show celebrates everything that is special about panto from the dazzling colour of the sets to the slapstick comedy to the jumbo sized songsheet for the sing-a-long." - Allan Crow, Fife Free Press
