Playhouse plans to deliver a pantomime for Salisbury made in Salisbury

Gareth Machin explains why it's important for Wiltshire Creative's pantomime to be fresh, original and aimed at a Salisbury audience in the second part of our look at this year's show.

We sat down with Gareth Machin, Wiltshire Creative's Artistic Director, to talk about this year's Pantomime, Sleeping Beauty.

In Part Two of the interview, we discuss the local nature of the show and why that is so important. 

Gareth said, "It's a pantomime that is made in Salisbury for Salisbury or 'Salisburyshire', and it's made with huge care and love.

"There's an awful lot of time and effort and creativity that goes into making these, these shows, and no, we don't, we don't sell the shows and cast the shows on, the names of famous actors.

"We cast really good actors who can really sing and really dance and are really funny. We also have a fantastic young company as well, made up of of local young people who are part of our dancing team. Their contribution makes a huge difference to the show as well. But it's the quality, the production values.

"At many pantomimes, you'll be looking at sets that will be their fifth, sixth, maybe ten, 15th time they've been out. Whereas, everything you see on our stage is made afresh for this show, and a lot of people have spent a lot of time making sure it is a really amazing night out."

It's not just the sets that are designed and built specifically for each show, lots of work goes into the costumes too. Gareth explained that the fittings can be an exciting time. "We are so lucky here in Salisbury that we have this amazing in-house skill set.

"We've got a team of incredibly talented people in wardrobe who make all this incredible stuff. It means that the designers working on the show know that they can be really bold and inventive because people can actually deliver and make them.

"The actors love their costume fittings and, sometimes, the costumes are the main event. If you think about Cinderella, if that transformation doesn't work, getting that dress right was one of the main challenges of our last production of Cinderella. And it was a beautiful moment.

"It took a huge amount of thought and effort to make sure that one moment absolutely landed."

Tickets for this year's pantomime, Sleeping Beauty, are on sale now on the Wiltshire Creative Website - https://www.wiltshirecreative.co.uk/events/sleeping-beauty

You can read the first part of the interview here - https://www.salisburyradio.co.uk/news/local-news/panto-planning-began-a-year-ago-and-now-things-are-getting-exciting/

You can listen to the interview with Gareth Machin in full below: