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Twinkle Little Star
by Phillip Meeks
Co-directed by Matt Aston & Damian Cruden
Lakeside Arts Centre / York Theatre Royal
January / Spring 2008

Meet Harold Thropp. He was once the youngest dame in Britain - a time when he would chase Prince Charming
up the palace steps in six-inch heels just because he could.

Now the wrong side of sixty he feels his best years are behind him.

As Harold prepares to become Widow Twankey for the final time, he looks back on a life well lived and realises
that sometimes letting go is the hardest thing to do.

'Twinkle Little Star' (Lakeside Arts Centre / York Theatre Royal)

Left Lion

If someone mentions Kenneth Alan Taylor, you will no doubt think of pantomime. Famously, Taylor has not
only written and produced the Nottingham Playhouse pantomime for the last 24 years but he always plays the
dame. What you might not know is that he is a fantastic actor and this play gives him a perfect opportunity to
demonstrate this.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Philip Meeks' play is that it wasn't written with K.A.T. in mind. The play
is a monologue delivered by Harold Thropp, an aged pantomime dame, reminiscing about a life spent doing what
he loved and regretting the loss of history and tradition.

Thropp sits in a dingy dressing room cleverly reproduced on stage in a pantomime style where the furniture is
drawn as if in a comic book. Harold goes through his well practiced routine as he dons frock, wig and make-up
to be Widow Twankey at the turning on of the town's Christmas lights. He arrives fuming that he has been given
a third-class dressing room and this is to be a constant theme as he complains of the decline in respect for
pantomime traditions. His arch enemy is Jezz, the famous-for-being-famous reality TV star who is the real draw
for the audience. Harold suffers multiple indignities and humiliations as his scenes and costume changes are cut
in favour of his brutish nemesis's cheesy pop tunes.

In between these foul-mouthed rants, Harold's mood becomes more reflective as he tells of his early career as
the youngest pantomime dame and the joy of his early performances. He remembers with warmth nights spent
cottaging in London's public conveniences and the odd characters he found there, troubles with the law and his
many happy years with his now deceased partner.

Harold, living within a world of memory and sentiment, seems to be as obsolete and unsuited to the modern
world as others see him. Though he is pitiful, bitter and malicious, we also grow to have respect for him and the
tradition he represents as he coaxes us into seeing the world through his eyes. Although this piece is mostly a
character study, Harold's plan for revenge on Jezz is gradually revealed and we share his delightful anticipation
of its fulfillment.

Since the Lakeside began producing its own plays, they have yet to present anything of less than top-notch
quality; mostly it seems thanks to the wonderfully talented producer Matt Aston who co-directs this piece.
Twinkle Little Star is another triumph for Lakeside.

[Adrian Bhagat]

The Times

"British theatre has turned into a piss-pot haven for the mediocre,” snarls Harold Thropp. The once proud
holder of the title of the nation’s youngest dame – “I was 28 when I played my first Twankey” – he’s still treading
the boards in the autumn of his years and his career. Now, though, he’s forced towards the bottom of the bill by
a one-hit wonder popstrel, an air-headed blond himbo from an Australian soap and, worst of all, a spiteful,
egotistical, talentless reality TV “star”. To cap it all, he’s been ignominiously relegated to a poky dressing room
in the basement. No wonder this panto veteran is feeling less than festive.

Philip Meeks’s one-man show, co-presented by York Theatre Royal and Lakeside Arts Centre, is performed with
acidic wit, nostalgic tenderness and occasional despair by Kenneth Alan Taylor. With 24 Nottingham Playhouse
pantomimes under the elastic waistband of his oversized bloomers, Taylor is clearly right at home in Matt Aston
and Damian Cruden’s production, with a bright cartoonish design by Mark Walters that parodies the garish set of
seasonal extravaganzas.

Meeks’s play is stuffed as full as a Christmas turkey with smart one-liners, evocative detail and quirky anecdotes.
It is also overlong and shamelessly sentimental. But Taylor makes Harold entertaining company – even if he is a
self-confessed misery-guts.

Through Harold’s reminiscences, which Taylor delivers with a glint in his eye and a slight lisp, we hear of past
lovers, and also of a long-standing love affair with the tawdry glamour of greasepaint. This wry, camp
northerner recalls how, in his youth, having fled to the theatre from the drudgery of a job as an electrician’s
apprentice, he would inhale “the smell of mothballs and dunked custard creams” at pensioners’ matinees and
revel in the heady thrill of crushes and cottaging. Most of all, he mourned his beloved partner Eric, who died
leaving him little to console him in a changing world where he feels he is rapidly becoming an irrelevance, on
stage and off. But Harold isn’t ready to hang up his wigs and his glittery frocks just yet; he has found a wicked
and spectacular way to put to use the electrical skills that he learnt so many years ago, before he found his
artistic vocation.

[Sam Marlowe]

The Guardian

If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, what fury hath a man dressed up as a woman, relegated to a basement
dressing room because a reality TV star has replaced him at the top of the bill?

Philip Meeks found inspiration for this monologue in a poster for a pantomime in which the actor John Inman
was playing second fiddle to someone from Big Brother. And so Harold Thropp was born: once the most feted
dame on the circuit, now struggling to come to terms with the fact that he has more lines on his face than there
are in this year's show.

There are times when Meeks slaps on the pathos a bit too thickly, yet the monologue shows a scholarly grasp of
panto lore. The significance of pristine white gloves is explained ("the dame must always be clean"), as well as the
importance of wearing two pairs of tights - it hides the package, while enhancing the sheen.

Yet Thropp's complaints already seem a little quaint. He bleats on about soap stars muscling in on his patch,
when recent evidence suggests it is the incursion of legit actors such as Ian McKellen and Simon Callow that
he really ought to be looking out for. As for his insistence that things aren't what they used to be, audience
figures around the country suggest pantomime is the one aspect of regional theatre that is still in rude health.

However, you could hardly wish for better casting than Kenneth Alan Taylor - the doyen of the Nottingham
Playhouse pantomime for the past 24 years. And though 90 minutes is a long time to be trapped in a windowless
basement with an embittered old queen, Taylor gives a glimpse of the humanity behind a man who has come to
find this cross-dressing business a bit of a drag.

[Alfred Hickling]

British Theatre Guide

Well-known for its crowd-pulling pantos, The Customs House last night presented a very different look at the
celebrated Dame, in the form of Kenneth Alan Taylor in Philip Meeks’ real-time monologue Twinkle Little Star.

A veteran panto star himself, Taylor is perfect in the role of Harold Thropp, an old-school Dame who, after years
of being top of the bill, is now playing second fiddle to a talentless reality TV celebrity. The shimmering backdrop
of the excellent set is in stark contrast to the drab and dingy basement dressing room to which he is horrified to
be consigned.

With an effortless mix of pathos and humour, Taylor is extremely watchable as the very non-politically correct
Thropp, making the audience howl with laughter and leaving them on the verge of tears with a joke too rude to
publish on these pages.

In true panto tradition Taylor frequently breaks the fourth wall, both deliberately and with a string of ad-libs
that a true dame would have been proud of.

Among distant reminiscent sounds of chorus music and past voices, he retells hilarious stories about his
childhood with no dad ‘but lots of uncles’, his career and seedy gay encounters in public toilets.

But this humour is offset by a tragic tale of lost love that produces some genuinely moving theatre.

Performed in just one act, I was captivated as he prepared himself routinely for his first performance of the
season, applying his make-up and using his two-tights trick.

Despite his longing to “say goodnight” to all of this, you feel completely sorry for this man who is too scared
to give up all he knows. At the end, when he takes on the comfort of his wonderful Widow Twanky costume,
the revelation of his sweet revenge on the reality 'star' was a delightful denouement.

Twinkle, Little Star is ... warmly recommended.

[Emily Taylor]

BBC Nottingham

A fading Widow Twankey gives us a glimpse of the seedier side of pantomime as he plots revenge against the
reality TV star who has made his life a misery. In a dingy basement dressing room Harold Thropp prepares to
become Widow Twankey for the final time.

Forced into dressing room number 5 by today's generation of pantomime stars – a fading pop star, the
mandatory Australian soap actor and a reality TV contestant – he looks back over a long career on the boards.

Once the youngest dame in Britain he no longer has to use make up to paint the character lines on his face.
He has also given up the six inch heels is which he chased Prince Charming up the palace steps for a pair of
boots that lets him get "as close to the ground as possible". But as he makes up in preparation to help switch
on the town's Christmas lights Harold plots his revenge on Jezz, the Genie, who got his part by winning a
"Big Brother" style telly show and who has turned the rest of the cast against him.

The final twist in this carefully crafted revenger's comedy reveals that stars can twinkle in more ways than one.

Thropp is brought to life by the Lakeside's first choice for the role, Nottingham's favourite pantomime Dame,
Kenneth Alan Taylor.

Ken's just directed his 24th panto for the Nottingham Playhouse – although sadly sidestepping the role of
Dame in recent years.

Actor and character both share a love of the traditions of pantomime. But while Taylor has managed to keep
those traditions alive each year at the Playhouse, Thropp hates the way they have become eroded by the
so-called stars off the telly who help put bums on seats.

As we watch in real time the dressing room preparations we learn some of the secrets of the craft – how to make
your legs look their best in not one but two pairs of tights – and how its considered bad luck to allow the rest of
the cast to see you don your make-up.

We also learn how a stroke of bad luck put Harold back on the boards after retirement – and how a skill learnt in
the past might help him get his revenge on Jezz.

Writer Philip Meeks got the idea for the play on a miserable night in Newcastle looking at window displays
outside the city's Theatre Royal.

"John Inman was in Aladdin as Twankey with some dreadful bloke who'd made an arse of himself on Big
Brother," he said.

"I thought it must be awful for someone who's made playing Dame a significant and serious part of his working
life to perform against someone who's only talent is being themselves.

"When I learned I was in town on the day the Christmas lights were being turned on I soon had my plot worked
out."

After previous single handed performances at the Lakeside in "Krapp's Last Tape" and "A Visit From Miss
Prothero" Kenneth Alan Taylor's command of this role will come as no surprise. Those in the know say that
Ken himself is a million miles removed from the miserable and careworn old actor he plays in Twinkle; but there
has to be room for more than a little suspension of disbelief when he's breathing life into a part that could so
easily be confused with his own character.

The spooky thing is that he will be back at the Nottingham Playhouse later this year in Aladdin - playing
Widow Twankey!

Let's hope that his fellow actors get to see him as Harold Thropp and learn a little respect for a fine old thesp.

Otherwise – like the play's Jezz – they could end up twinkling in a way they least expect!

[Nick Brunger]

Nottingham Evening Post

Seedy, pathos-filled winner.

For someone famously associated with panto – his latest is currently running in Nottingham – this one-hander
seems a brave venture. Kenneth Alan Taylor plays Harold Thropp, a gay old pantomime dame “teetering on the
brink of clapped-out”. The action takes place in his dressing room, where, as he transforms himself into
Widow Twankey, he talks to the audience.

It’s a real-time monologue revealing the often seedy side of panto and simultaneously telling the pathos-filled
tale of Thropp’s life, much of it in pre-Wolfenden cottaging days. Writer Philip Meeks tells us in the programme
that the character was suggested by the late John Inman.

Taylor does one-handers about elderly men well but for sheer excellence of acting this stands out. From his
masterly timing to the way he uses his hands and finger-tips he’s totally convincing. Thropp comes over as
a non-saintly, oddly prudish gay, a curmudgeon at odds with contemporary youth and most things modern.

Mark Walter’s set is brilliantly conceived. A dressing-room yes, but, done in primary colours, it’s deliberately
made to look as fake as a pantomime set. Background sound is evocative of a world on stage.

And there’s a wicked twist in the tale.

[Alan Geary]

Metro

According to its author, Philip Meeks, this one-man show was inspired by the late John Inman,
whose name appeared on a theatre poster alongside a former Big Brother contestant.
Enter Harold Thropp, the fictional ageing pantomime dame who will hold our attention for the duration
of this startling piece of theatre.

With Inman himself gone, it’s hard to imagine a more perfect actor for the role than Kenneth Alan Taylor,
whose love of panto is second to none, and whose last appearance at Lakeside was in Samuel Beckett’s
powerful reflection on age and memory, Krapp’s Last Tape. Thropp considers his life and has realised,
as his audience might shout, it’s behind him. He gripes about his dressing room and political correctness,
remembers the man he loved and lost and plots his revenge on the reality TV star who humiliated him the
previous year.

We hear about the glory days of British theatre, the risks and pleasures of 1950’s cottaging, an electrical
apprenticeship and a dysfunctional relationship with a less-than-doting mother, all while Thropp transforms
himself from an elderly gent to an outlandish parody of femininity. The exhilarating switches in mood –
from grumpy comedy to bleak sentiment and borderline madness – are more than matched by Taylor’s
virtuoso performance, in which the words Beckett and the pantomime dame collide in an unlikely but
memorable confessional.

[Wayne Burrows ]

Mansfield Chad

Fans of actor, writer and director Kenneth Alan Taylor will know that he's been a panto legend for more than
two decades with his flamboyant family entertainment at Nottingham Playhouse.

But for those making the short trip out of the city to the Lakeside Arts Centre will see a different side to Kenneth,
and the whole fizzy world of panto, in the dark, adult play 'Twinkle Little Star.'

This 90-minute one-man show - on until Saturday 26th before touring to Wakefield, South Shields and York -
is a tour-de-force for Kenneth who plays an ageing panto dame, reflecting on a lifetime in the theatre and the
changes in his stage and personal life.

Writer Philip Meeks got the inspiration for this new take on panto from one show in Newcastle which saw a
Big Brother-type winner catapulted before the footlights, sharing the stage with a seasoned performer who no
longer had top billing.

This loss of face, and the dumbing down of the panto tradition, were beautifully articulated by Kenneth who,
as down-on-his-luck Harold Thropp, arrives at his dingy, basement dressing room ready for another gruelling
panto run as Widow Twankey.

Now sidelined in favour of the Z-list pop star of the moment, Harold looks back at the time he gave up working
at an electrical shop to tread the boards as the youngest panto dame in Britain.

In a script full of witty and sharp observations, the has-been stage star rues the ever-changing and downmarket
edge to panto, whether it was being greeted by a company manager "who looked like she was 12" to a pop-based
programme that saw his many dress changes curtailed, the same fate befalling the end-of-show tradition of an
audience singsong sheet or youngsters being invited up on stage.

However, this is not a show for children, but it's one where the wonderment and innocence of panto fun and
games seems to have changed, and not always for the better - especially with a shocking finale that I did not
expect.

[Tony Spittles]