PAM THE PROMPTER

“Are you in any bands, Matt?” asked Pam the Prompter. She seemed genuinely interested so I leaned across from the piano and told her about some of the stuff I’m involved in.

She’s an older lady, perhaps a little disconnected from the rest of the pantomime cast somehow. A little dog, quiet, like a doll, sat imperceptibly well-behaved on her lap, nestled between the pages of the script in a red ring binder. For today, Pam the Prompter had a particularly tricky task: prompting the actors when they forgot their lines.

“You have a really difficult job there, Pam,” I said in a break.

I could see what was happening.

First of all the actors were forgetting a lot of lines. The kids were alright but some of the adults were struggling a bit. Pam the Prompter had to be razor-tight to the script at all times.

No-one’s more frustrated than the actor who knows they’ve got it wrong or have got stuck. So sometimes, just through remembering it a split-second late, they cut across Pam’s prompt with the line as they just remembered it. The prompter has to stay calm and collected.

Thirdly, everyone else in the room also seemed to want to help with the prompting! That meant that often everyone was talking over Pam the Prompter at a bit of missed dialogue or a head-scratching pause. Not ideal, is it?

“... just wanted to say that I appreciate it,” I said warmly. She smiled.

Then it was time for me to play something for a scene-change. It seems any scene involving the pirates needs a short burst of ‘What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor’ so I played that while they worked out how long it takes to do a stage reset behind the (not there yet) curtains. There’s not a lot of tune in those 8 bars, so I did a few little key changes with it and messed about with the chords. There’s a line between doodling and showing off though.

Perhaps that’s why Pam asked me about bands.

“Ooh a latin band!” she exclaimed, lighting up. I was flashing back to Southampton, where I was so bad at playing keys, I got handed a cowbell as if I were the work-experience stand-in.

“Do you even know where the pulse is?” had jibed the band-leader.

“Yeah it’s fun,” said I, to Pam the Prompter, “Hard work, but fun. Like this!”

She laughed in a kind-hearted, rather beautiful way, as though between us we’d stumbled into a pocket of kindness. I arched my fingers over the keys, ready for my next tune. That’s the spirit.