Panto stars Iain ‘Sheepie’ Smith, Kevin McLeod, and Anya Scott-Rodgers are all returning to the Alhambra this December for the Dunfermline threatre's production of The Wizard of Oz.
Sheepie will be playing the scarecrow, Kevin the cowardly lion, and Anya will be playing both Auntie Em and Glinda.
Speaking about what she is most looking forward to in the panto, Anya said: “I get to fly! I’ve never flown before in the show, so I’m really excited about that, but unfortunately my aerial silk trapeze routine was sadly cut out. I get to fly and I’m really looking forward to it.”
She added: “I like the fact that there’s obviously lots of little modern nods to things in the script but also we still have very classic panto elements. So people know what the gags are going to be before they hit, not that your gags are terrible, but what I mean is that it ticks all the boxes.
"It’s got the traditional panto booing, cheering, behind you, stuff like that, and lots of other little tricks as well, and I think it moulds together.”
Sheepie, who is now doing his 14th year in panto, said: “It’s very important to have fun on stage, which is one of my kind of rules, but the audience need to be involved. You can have fun, but you need to involve the audience, and I think we’ve got that nice dynamic here.”
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Anya and Kevin both only joined the Alhambra panto cast last year from children's entertainers Fun Box.
Anya said: “Kevin and I, this is our second year doing panto here, but until September last year we were touring up and down the country with Fun Box, so we’ve never been able to get into a theatre and be there for a run, we’ve always been packing up and on to the next one. Fun Box is certainly different from panto but…”
“But similar in many ways.” Kevin finished.
Last year in the Alhambra’s Beauty and the Beast pantomime, Sheepie was playing Daft Danny, but things are a bit different this year as the scarecrow.
He said: “I’ve got no brain, so if I forget my lines I’m alright!”
Kevin added: “It is nice to be part of that team, and these characters are such icons for generations now since the stories first came out, since the movie and all that, it’s part of our western society.
“It’s engrained in it, people know the characters so there’s almost a wee bit of shorthand done already.”
The Wizard of Oz will be running at the Alhambra Theatre from Thursday, December 7 to Thursday, December 28.
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