The show must go on and it does, every Christmas
THE festively-lit streets of Cork are bustling with Christmas shoppers, despite the grey drizzly weather. In the auditorium of the Opera House, it’s warm and dark, with the stage illuminated by lights. Halfway up the theatre, director Bryan Flynn stands at a control desk, headphones clamped to his ears, scribbling down notes while the choreographer puts his dancers through the same sequence, over and over. It’s not just about getting the steps right; they have to move in a certain way, and end up in exactly the right formation, so that the next piece of the action can come smoothly in.
“It’s a huge undertaking, a pantomime,” says Flynn. Unlike most theatrical productions, it requires a large backstage crew (20 at the last count), complicated lighting, and tons of props and costume changes (there are 47 wigs to be re-groomed for every performance). The cast is big too. As well as the principals and the chorus and dancers, there are six dance schools in the kids’ teams, which take turns in the heavy performance schedule. Twice-daily performances exhaust the adult members of the cast, but you won’t find them complaining that everyday life is put on hold from November to January.
