A new Sleeping Beauty pantomime with a “modern twist” is coming to Catford’s Broadway Theatre, directed by award-winning panto legend Susie McKenna, and is giving away 600 £1 tickets to those in need.

The tickets have been given in partnership to food banks, refugee groups, and vulnerable groups like young carers.

Lead producer Julie Clare told ELL: “Ability to pay should not be a barrier to access theatre. There is no other art form that has the power that live performance has. Nothing is the same as being in a room with a whole load of other people from your community having the same experience in that space, in that moment.”

This is also the production’s second year of their Talent Pipeline, offering aspiring creatives in theatre paid placements, as well as mentorships from West End professionals.  

Clare told ELL: “The reason I started it in the first place is because we are pricing the global majority and working class talent out of theatre. It’s become too expensive for people to go and train, and if you do not come from any theatre background, you do not know how to even go about it. It’s about access.”

They are also waiting to hear if they have secured funding to provide free theatre days for primary school children next year. 

The panto is “set against the backdrop of an uneasy truce between Westminsteria and Lewishtonia”, Clare told ELL. It follows warrior princess Tahlia, played by West End’s Roshani Abbey, as she confronts the curse put on her as a child.

McKenna told ELL that audiences should expect “Game of Thrones meets children’s adventure stories with all the trappings of a pantomime. The protagonist is supposed to be asleep for 100 years, but I, like I always do, have slightly tweaked the story. It’s really a show about female empowerment, but it’s still a pantomime at the end of the day.”

McKenna is seen as a catch for Catford. She has written and directed the pantomimes at Hackney Empire every year since 1998, including the 21st anniversary production of Dick Whittington set in post war London 1948 as he arrives on the SS Empire Windrush. Her subversions of classic stories have won her Best Director at the Great British Pantomime Awards in 2020. Her new pantomine will have a decidedly Lewisham twist, with locally-born actors and local references in the script.

She told ELL: “I’m devastated by the division that has been sewn over the last 14 years, and how the right-wing media has been manipulating the population. I’m fuming about it, and I guess it’s my small way of sticking two fingers up to that. And less graphically, being able to counterbalance it in my way. There’s no reason that pantomime can’t do that. It’s always been steeped in politics. The British pantomime, as we know it, stemmed from the music halls in the early 1900s which were political… It took the mickey out of posh people, poor people.

“But also, the more social and political comments in the show are done with comedy so it’s not hammered home. It’s a level that adults and children can enjoy.

“I make sure there is love and redemption in my pantomimes. I don’t kill anyone in them. You’ve got young people knifing each other on the streets. A young boy called Robert Levy was killed just outside my office in Hackney. With those sorts of experiences… I make sure there is room for redemption”.

16 year-old Robert Levy died in 2004 when he was stabbed multiple times after trying to help a boy he didn’t know was being threatened by a knife.

“I am a storyteller at the end of the day, and for me, I want to tell stories that people don’t often see on stages. It was my ethos at Hackney to focus on stories that you don’t necessarily hear about… I’ve been lucky enough to work in the industry, tell these stories on stage.”

Many cast and crew members are from Lewisham themselves, a choice deliberately made by the team. McKenna told ELL: “We made sure the cast on stage represented the community that’s in the audience. We have a very diverse cast.”

Durone Stokes, who plays the prince, was born and raised in Lewisham. He told ELL: “I have always felt so blessed to grow up in Lewisham. I had access to all kinds of clubs and sports and performing arts opportunities. My very first theatre experience was actually here at the Broadway Theatre in Catford. It all started for me with dance classes at a local dance school in Brockley which is now called Studio 23 and then eventually went to the Brit School at 16.”

Lisa Davina Phillip, who plays the wicked fairy Carabosse, said: “I was born and bred in Lewisham to parents who were part of the Windrush generation. I love Lewisham, it’s a beautiful melting pot of cultures. I went to Lewisham Bridge Primary School, for those who remember, and first performed at the Broadway Catford when it was known as the Lewisham Theatre with a local youth group called Second Wave.”

Clare said: “There are so many local references. If you’re from Catford and you say to anyone, “Have you seen Fritz today?”, you’ll know exactly who that is. It’s the lime bikes left on the side of the road that drive everybody crazy… it’s about being able to name those things that people are familiar with.”

McKenna added: “There’s things in the script that locals will know and feel ownership of. It’s their panto. It’s going to be a really great time. We have some of the top musical theatre performers in the country and we’re ready for a party.”

Performances start from tomorrow, December 4 and run until New Year’s Eve in Catford’s historic Grade II Broadway Theatre. You can book tickets here.