Kathryn Rooney on switching from leading role to the panto director

It’s a move which prompted star Elaine C Smith recently to declare the Midlander to be a trailblazer. What does the director think of being seen nowadays as a flag-waver for feminism? “Yes, I can imagine that’s what Elaine would say,” says Rooney, offering a Snow White-standard sweet smile. “And it’s very nice of her. But while I am female, and there aren’t many female directors out there, particularly in panto, what I’d say I bring to panto is a sense of humour, and knowledge.”

She grins. “Elaine will hate me for not saying ‘Power to women!’ but I think my job is to sit there and watch a cast rehearse and say. ‘Yes, that’s funny’. Or not. And I think I’ve got the experience to recognise laughs when they arrive.”

Elaine C Smith

Rooney is not talking about her theatre experience, featuring in a range of shows such as Calendar Girls. “My family, who moved to Birmingham during the Troubles, are from the Falls Road in Belfast, and they have a real strong sense of humour which is so similar to Glaswegian. I remember when I was young my mother would let me stay up late to watch Rab C Nesbitt, and I watched Elaine as a little girl, and she was brilliant. But the point is, I knew that world, of men falling out the pub and slurring their words – it was so like my own. I know what Glaswegians laugh at.”

Rooney couldn’t not have become involved in showbiz. (Her mother is a still a country and western club singer.) Poignantly, the first panto little Kathryn was taken to see was Snow White, at the Birmingham Alex, with Rod Hull and Emu. “My mum took me out of school to see the matinee preview, because it was a cheaper day. But it was instinctive on her part. She knew I’d benefit more from seeing a panto than being at school. She knew I never wanted to do anything else but be in showbiz.”

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The work ethic Rooney employed as a performer over the years has transferred onto her role as a panto director. “I am a panto anorak. I’ll start working on the panto, collecting ideas, from Boxing Day,” she says in all seriousness. “I can tell you about every panto across the land. I remember the props, the performers, the costumes. For example, I was at the Hackney panto at the weekend. You always look around for routines you can take and make them your own. Or I’ll go and see Johnny Mac in Great Yarmouth in the summer and look at what he’s doing and think, ‘I’ll have that for panto in Glasgow’.”

Rooney may have once offered up totally convincing Snow White softness but her Belfast background has gifted her the toughness required of a director. But does having an eight-year-old son (Alfie, already an actor and appearing in the Palladium panto this year) help in getting actors to do what you want them to? “Definitely,” she laughs. “And sometimes you have to be tough because you are running out of time. It’s about herding the cast in the right direction. Yet, you have to be clever. The trick is to let them play around at the beginning, let them think they can do what they want – but in the end I know they’re really doing it my way.”

What of changing sensibilities, for example where happy endings are no longer dependent upon the principal girl being rescued by a handsome prince? “I’m something of a traditionalist in panto,” she says, indicating that discussions with Smith on the subject would be fun to overhear.

What of political correctness? “It’s getting harder and harder to keep everyone happy,” she admits. Does this mean that when doing Whittington, for example, you can’t deliver the line to the principal boy: “What? You don’t like Dick?”

“I think Julian Clary can get away with it,” she says, laughing. “Personally, I’m on the side of ‘Just do it.’ But these days we have to be more cautious. We have to adapt.”

She reflects. “I think we may even be close to the time when the Ugly Sisters won’t be played by women any more. In this panto we have Elaine as the dame, for example, who’s a great cross-over. Yet, if Stanley Baxter could make a comeback, I’m sure he’d still be the glamorous dame, and wearing a beautiful frock.”

Kathryn Rooney’s move from playing Snow White to directing that same panto may have prompted some wicked queens in the business to assume that because her husband is Michael Harrison, chief executive of Crossroads Pantomimes, he sprinkled some magic dust onto her shoulders. But that would be far from the true story, she explains.

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“I was set to play  Cinderella in Southampton, but a week before we opened, I woke up feeling not quite right. And it turned out that I was pregnant. But I thought, well, I’m in the early stages so I rang Brian and said. ‘Look, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is I’m pregnant, but the bad news is I can’t do the Wall routine [where Cinders continually falls backwards off the wall].

Brian Conley

“At first Brian was great. He said we’d cut the routine, but 10 minutes later he called back and said, ‘No, it’s too good a routine to cut. But why don’t you direct instead?’ Now, if Brian hadn’t suggested the idea, it wouldn’t have entered my head. However, it all seemed to make sense.”

Her partner’s response? “He said if you want to do it, why not? You’ve sat in on enough technical rehearsals with me to know what’s what.’ And after 20 years of watching him direct, you can’t help but learn. And I can also bring experience as a performer.”

That talent has already brought a Best Director Award. But does she miss performing? She laughs. “I thought I’d go on playing Snow White for years, until someone said to me, ‘Do you want to play the Wicked Queen now?’ Not a chance. I always knew I never wanted to move on to the Queen, or to the Fairy. I’m too squeaky to be the Wicked Queen and I didn’t ever want to be a Fairy. I didn’t want to be the first to come down the stairs at the end.”

Or not be the fairest creature in all pantoland? The laugh breaks into a deliciously wicked smile. “I’d rather take a bite at the apple and die.”

There’s little question Rooney’s connection with Snow White is so powerful she can barely pass a fruit shop selling Mackintosh Reds without feeling queasy. But she must have had some demanding moments over the years in bringing ever-smiling loveliness to the audience?

“Well, at times the dwarfs in the show have been a bit naughty,” she says, grinning of her chums, with fairytale castle-sized understatement in her voice. “When I’d be lying there in the glass coffin, under the influence of the poisoned apple, unable to move, one of them would undo my skirt so that when the prince kissed me and I stood up, the skirt would fall down. Or I’d be lying there, ‘dead’, and the dwarfs would draw on my face with lipstick, so that when the prince leaned over to kiss me, he’d get a real fright.”

The Snow White smile and the cartoon bluebirds return, as if just kissed by her Prince. “You know, I loved it. All of it. But I don’t need to be Snow White now that I’m directing her.”

Snow White at the King’s Theatre, Glasgow stars Elaine C Smith, Johnny Mac, Darren Brownlie and Blythe Jandoo. Until January 7.