It was 44 years ago that the MADC first took-on the sizeable task of producing the annual Christmas panto at Teatru Manoel. Prior to this the brief had been the responsibility of the Ariel Players, the amateur drama company from the British services Malta based Royal Air Force. Not surprisingly much of the content of these shows had been slanted to a British… and in particular, armed services audience. There were few, if any local actors involved and – to be honest – the quality of the end product was, to say the least, variable.

So when the MADC took over production the bar was already set rather low. I can remember, even as a young teenager, wondering if they hadn’t bitten off far more than they could chew and the end result would be every bit as naff as that of its predecessor. 

Anyway, the MADC appointed a writer and director and set about mounting a production. Happily they already had quite a bit of experience in putting on large-scale productions with sizeable casts, stuff like musicals and the annual Shakespeare play in San Anton Gardens. As the subject of the first panto, the writer decided to go for Cinderella. The main reason being that everyone knows the story and it is also probably the most popular of all pantos with audiences.

Unfortunately the writer also admitted that he didn’t have a clue about how to go about the job. His only contact with the genre had been as a child, being taken to see a pantomime in the UK by his grandfather. But help was at hand… big time.

In 1978 the British services were still in Malta, if only for the last few months of their mission. Consequently British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) was still operating, albeit with a skeleton staff. Happily one of the members of that staff was a radio presenter called John Crabtree. He had been a pro actor in the UK who had taken part in many pantos up and down the country. He came to the rescue of the MADC when he offered to write a basic Cinderella script, over which the local writer could expand. This was the key that opened the door of pantomime to Maltese audiences. 

What John did was outline all the scenes and characters. He also wrote in where things like the transformation scene, the slapstick scene and the big ballroom scene would happen. This allowed the writer to write appropriate dialogue, song lyrics and jokes, to fill up the whole text. Mr Crabtree also agreed to play the vital comic part of Buttons, the valet to Baron Hardup and his two grotesque daughters.

Cinderella: From the left: John Crabtree as Buttons, Peter Stace as Ugly Sister 1, Bea Dennis as Ugly Sister 2.

These were played by experienced dramatic actress Bea Dennis and six feet four inch tall RAF policeman, Peter Stace, in drag. The role of the eponymous Cinders was played by Astrid Vella, who is better known these days as an influential environmental activist. This was also the first panto in which Nanette Brimmer featured. She played the secondary character Dandini, a sort of male assistant to the principal boy, Cinderella’s eventual husband Prince Charming, who was portrayed by English professional singer Rosamund Baird. There was also an eclectic chorus of mainly female members, plus Tanya Bayona’s dancers and babes.

Naturally, all the onstage business required a very strong backstage presence – and leading this was the lady that held the whole thing together as assistant director and coordinator, Diane Joseph. Di, as everyone soon learned to call her, was almost certainly the most important element in the first few pantos produced by the MADC. She ran everything from the stage corner, including the artistes, the dancers, the babes, the orchestra, the scene changes and even the director! A wonderful lady still going strong, so I understand.

Di’s husband Johnnie acted as stage manager for most of these early shows and also became guide and mentor to many of today’s SMs… including Chris (Peanuts) Mifsud… Astrid’s (Cinderella’s) brother. The company were also fortunate in persuading retired commercial artist, Neville Turner to design and paint the set. This he did for the first four pantos.

That this first toe-in-the-panto-water was a success was due to the expertise and energy of the cast, coupled with the smooth running of the backstage operation. It also pointed the way for the production of many more pantomimes… even up to those produced today.

After Cinderella wrapped, the MADC were already planning the panto to be put on in 1979/80, which was to be their take on Aladdin. 

This was the first show in which Colin Easton starred in the principal comic’s role. In Aladdin it was Wishee Washee, the employee of Widow Twanky’s laundrywoman. Twanky is the dame role in Aladdin and in the MADC production it was played by Joe Mompalao Depiro. I well remember his first entrance… from the stage flies on a harness, floating down to earth using his umbrella as a parachute. It was not known at the time that Joe was absolutely terrified of heights, so the stunt was doubly courageous. Aladdin was played by Nanette Brimmer who, at the time, happened to be pregnant. A fact not broadcast to the cast and crew until the whole show wrapped.

In these early days a panto run amounted to around 12 performances. These days it is more than double that number. I understand that the MADC committee were unsure as to whether a Maltese based panto would make good commercial sense. In the event the show was a sell-out and so were the rest of these early MADC pantos. When booking opened queues at the box office frequently stretched way up Old Theatre Street and down Old Bakery Street. Some say, occasionally they even stretched to near St Elmo! Certainly some people even queued overnight in sleeping bags to ensure they were first in the queue next morning.

The immense popularity of the first 1970s MADC pantos continued into and beyond the 1980s as crowds flocked to Teatru Manoel for this annual end-of-the-year theatrical treat. The same writing and directing team, under the supervision of the tireless Di Joseph, continued to come up with innovative and funny scripts. Written in stone pantomime conventions were largely adhered to, while tailoring each script more and more to Maltese audiences. Maltese situations and personalities… particularly our politicians were regularly pilloried and ridiculed, with their more risible imperfections magnified and satirised mercilessly.

The second MADC panto to star Colin Easton as the principal comic was Dick Whittington, the tale of the penniless boy and his cat who later became Lord Mayor of London. As well as Easton the cast included Tonio Farrugia in the dame’s role of Sarah the cook, Joe Mompalao Depiro as Alderman Fitzwarren, Amelie Braun inside the skin of Dick’s cat… and of course Nanette Brimmer as the eponymous hero and principal boy. As the evil baddie, King Rat the director cast Kit Ripard, who had been a splendid Baron Hardup in the first panto, Cinderella. And – although Kit gave his usual convincing performance, he confessed afterwards that he hated being the butt of boos and hisses, Sadly he died before the MADC were able to cast him as a more sympathetic character in subsequent pantos.

Dick Whittington: Hubert Puglisevich and Tim Ripard as captain and mate.

The backstage crew were again headed by stage manager Johnny Joseph, the extensive wardrobe was supervised by Mary Ballinger, choreographer was Alison White whose dancers succeeded those of Tanya Bajona. Hair and wigs were the responsibility of Michael Galea and were to remain in his extremely capable hands for a good many years, eventually succeeded by his son Guy. The key post of musical director was once again in the expert hands of Maestro Joe Vella, who was very much an essential component of these early shows.

The attendances were yet again quite awesome and every performance was sold out. During one matinee as many as 26 people were discovered squeezed into one box – ridiculous and quite dangerous. It later transpired that one of the theatre’s ushers had been running a scam on the side by selling extra tickets unbeknown to the rest of the theatre’s staff or indeed the MADC.

The following year, 1981 saw the MADC stage Jack and the Beanstalk as their Christmas offering and by this time the number of performances had jumped into the 20s. This was to prove to be the last panto that would star Colin Easton in the role of the principal comic as he was to emigrate to Australia in the spring of 1982.

This particular panto can be problematical in that the villain is the giant – and it’s not that easy to boo and hiss a two and a bit metre tall mass of prosthesis fibreglass. I’m told the height was attained by getting one actor to sit on the shoulders of another. Certainly it looked impressive, but not really scary enough to trouble the smaller kids in the audience.

Once again the show sold out and by now the MADC were justifiably reaping a decent profit from their annual spectacular. And the one thing I noticed, from a spectator’s point of view, was the fact that every MADC production looked absolutely splendid: From the sets to the costumes, no expense seemed to have been spared to make each show even more glamorous than the last one.

For the 1982 into ’83 panto, Babes in the Woods was the choice – and a very good one it proved. For the first time a male was cast as principal boy in the person of Nick Ripard, who made a virile Robin Hood. The babes were a little older than nursery school age; so maybe the panto should have been titled ‘Teenagers in the Woods.’ Panto stalwart Hubert Puglisevich played his first dame as Nurse Desirée Droppem, while Harry Borg was a suitably villainous Sheriff of Nottingham. As was by now the norm, Maestro Joe Vella led the pit orchestra and acted as musical director, Veronica Darmanin was wardrobe mistress for the first time; Neville Turner designed and decorated the many sets for the last time; while Diane Joseph held the whole thing together as coordinator. 

By now the continuity of tasks meant that the whole production was a slick professional affair with everybody familiar with their own link in the panto chain. And – as ever, the show was a complete sell-out.

In 1984/85 the choice of panto was Puss in Boots. It starred Anthony Bezzina as the eponymous cat; but good though he was the show was stolen by a couple of veteran performers: Madeleine Attard Montalto as the wicked witch and Alan Meadows as Queen Vulgaria, the dame. Madeleine managed the difficult art of being scarily evil while also being extremely funny. Alan absolutely nailed the role of dame and was, quite simply the finest interpreter of that role that Malta has ever seen before or since. He absolutely nailed it: The dame is simply a man – and the audience knows this – in a frock, certainly not a drag queen – and happily Alan knew this and played to it, terrific stuff.

Puss in Boots: Alan Meadows as Queen Vulgaria.

The 1985/86 Christmas panto was arguably the most successful yet. The MADC decided to stage Mother Goose, with Hubert Puglisevich in the title role. He was also an excellent dame, although very different from Alan Meadows interpretation. Nanette Brimmer was back in the fishnets again as principal boy, Colin – and Michael Tabone as the demon king was particularly memorable. Backstage: Chris (Peanuts) Mifsud succeeded his mentor Johnny Joseph as stage director, but he did still have Diane Joseph’s reassuring presence on hand as ASM and coordinator. One number which stopped the show at every performance was a high kicking chorus line of chorus boys performing the song from West Side Story: Gee Officer Krupke rewritten as Hey Sergeant Bugeja.

And that just about wraps up the earliest MADC pantos at the Teatru Manoel. As most people know the company is still producing a panto every Christmas and long may this continue. It has become almost as traditional here these days as turkey and Christmas pud.