Johnny McKnight is a Pantomime Dame with close on 20 years experience. She’s behind You is the story of how he was a wee primary kid from Ardrossan watching his first panto – with Johnny Beattie as Dame at the Gaiety in Ayr – through to his first professional experience as the Silly Billy character at the MacRoberts Arts Centre in Stirling, before donning the gingham dress, the false breasts and the huge bahooky as Dame. McKnight then recounts his pantomimic odyssey from the MacRobert Arts Centre before establishing himself as a mainstay of pantomime at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow.
It was, as he tells us, his experience of being Widow Twankey in Aladdin that he snapped and after a wine of many, told the Artistic Director exactly what he thought of the outdated, outmoded, misogynistic, vaguely racist experience he had to endure within that pantomime. He awoke the next morning, hungover, with a phone call from the Artistic Director challenging him to do better the following year. Given that he is still writing and performing in panto, the rest is as they say, history.
McKnight does not manage to change everything he wants over one panto season, but what becomes clear is his development professionally which takes hold of him whilst he is beginning to accept his own identity, that McKnight flourishes. His focus, as a gay man, includes gender balance (it would be wrong to suggest that he is fixated, he is certainly not that) and the way in which people are portrayed on stage. As a gay man who never saw openly gay men on stage, never mind a gay relationship, he witnessed a bizarre theatricality where the older woman was a man, and the younger, dashing Prince was a woman chasing another woman, he realised that this might well be the time and place for him to make changes.
What shines through She’s Behind You is McKnight’s affection for the art form. It brought him closer and closer to the very first gay relationship in panto and kiss on stage – celebrated at a preview performance one year with a primary one class on one side of the Tron and, on the other side a Christian Fellowship Group. Both of whom quickly forgot themselves and became massively engaged with the joy of pantomime, as they called for the two men not only to hold hands and be together, but to kiss. In the Traverse, as he retold this, breath was held for the end of the story, just as I am sure, it was held at the very show in which the dial was shifted in acceptance.
Johnny McKnight is a consummate performer. He is quick-witted, and thoughtful. She’s behind You is not some kind of 200 years history of the 19th Century arrival of this development of Commedia dell’arte into a working-class vehicle to throw arrows and outrageous puns at those in power. This is a very personal journey that took McKnight from sitting there wondering why he loved pantomime so much, to discovering why it was perfect to effect change. As a storyteller he is spellbinding.
Of course, never one to give up performing, he employs all the tricks of a pantomime dame. We are utterly terrified when he comes off the stage telling us what he’s going to do, looking for willing victims – able on the night I was there to present a rhyme for victim number one, Simon.
But this is so much more than a romp through McKnight’s back catalogue of triumphs and challenges. This is never more true than when, at one point, McKnight holds us poignantly still. He is describing a complaint received over McKnight’s behaviour in a panto. It forced him to realise that he had not thought through the implications of using audience interaction and going out into the auditorium as a tactic for humour. It led to change in his own practice.
Horrified that he had upset someone he sought legal advice, made overtures for apologies, apologised unreservedly, and offered meetings to hear about the offence he had caused. All offers made by McKnight were rejected, until it was discovered that the complainent was not the person he had selected for interaction. It was an audience member who felt that it was inappropriate in a family show to see two men kissing. It was a touchstone moment and instead of being outraged, McKnight made changes in his practice around consent, then doubled down on making more changes in panto to include far more diversity, and not less. It was the best response imaginable.
If that were all the message contained in She’s Behind You it would be enough. But this piece of consummate skill, coupled with an incredibly sparkly set, all of the requisite sparkly panto props, all the songs and joining in that you would expect to celebrate being a Pantomime Dame, leave you all Christmassy. McKnight’s message is all inclusive, he is telling us that in panto land, whoever you are, you’re in, so stay in, be in with us, because out there, there are things and people that will try to get to you. But for a couple of hours, we’re in your team, because you have always been in ours.
She’s Behind You, Traverse Theatre, 31st July, 25th August, various times.
Review date, Friday, 22nd August, 2025
