Thank you so much for hosting me today to talk about my new Christmas book, A Little Christmas Panto. Before I start to chat about the book I wanted to say how much I love the name of your blog because I too am an insatiable reader. In fact if it wasn’t for the wonderful libraries I’ve enjoyed all my life I would no doubt be bankrupt by now in an effort to feed my reading habit! (Wouldn't we all! 😂)
I thought your readers might enjoy hearing a little about the inspiration behind my book. It started life as a short story written as promotion for my last year’s Christmas book, A Cornish Christmas at Pear Tree Farm. From out of that magical place in my head that I’ll never truly understand, but am incredibly grateful for, the character of Zach appeared as a Hollywood star who retreats from acting after a personal tragedy. When he rents a cottage in a small Cornish village he gets drawn into helping with the local pantomime and that sets him on a new path in life. When my publisher read the short story she casually said – do I see a Christmas book here? – which got my brain whirring! The essence of the short story ended up becoming the next to last chapter end of the book so it was really a question of discovering what led up to that point.
One side of the research needed was relatively easy because I grew up in a small Cornish village and was in the junior chorus of our local pantomime on several occasions. I’m fortunate enough to have several good friends who either were involved in putting on the show in the past or are doing so now and they’ve all been incredibly generous with their insights. Of course my pantomime is a fictionalised version and when they read it I’ve no doubt they’ll raise their eyebrows at certain parts of the story that stretch the bounds of possibility at bit but hopefully they’ll forgive me in the name of artistic license! The British pantomime is a unique thing and I used Zach’s ignorance of what it’s all about to put in explanations for readers who aren’t familiar with the traditional show. I used my American husband’s help for some for this as he has never seen a pantomime. Here’s an extract where Rosey is explaining a little of the history of pantomime to Zach:
‘Oh right. I’ve heard of your English pantomimes but never seen one. They sound strange.’ ‘I suppose they are. The whole thing is a very British tradition, although it has its roots in the Italian “Commedia dell’Arte” and the early Elizabethan and Stuart masques.’ Rosey chattered on about the first acknowledged pantomime in 1721 based on the characters of Harlequin and Columbine, and caught Zach’s amusement. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to bore you. It’s a fascination of mine and I tend to forget not everyone shares it.’
Of course I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole when I started doing this research because it was so fascinating. Most of it didn’t end up including because it wasn’t necessary to the development of the story but I learned a lot which is never a bad thing.
I hope you and all of my readers will enjoy their visit to Cornwall and pantomime land – Oh Yes I Do!
1 comment:
Thank you so much, Gina for joining in this great blog tour and for letting me stop by and chat about my new book today. It really was a fun one to write and came quite easily - not all of them do!
Post a Comment