Boo was having a little trouble with her homework. This was very unusual, she usually spent time every evening after dinner working on it, so that she rarely had to rush to get it all done before Friday. This evening though she was struggling because she knew that there was no way she would have time to do it tomorrow.
Tomorrow evening she was going to the circus.
For Boo, going to the circus was both bad and good, she loved the circus animals and the high-wire act, but she really, really hated clowns. She was not sure why she disliked them, but for as long as she could remember, she had always been scared of them. every party that she went to that had a clown was like a torture session.
However, this evening, she was sitting at the dining room table, puzzling over her homework. her teacher, Miss Matthews had devised a very tricky coloring task that was based on maths. Boo was very good at maths but found that her mind kept wandering and she was spending way too much time thinking about clowns. She made several mistakes along the way and each time she did so she had to spend time back tracking.
‘This is rubbish’ she said more to her self than anyone else.
‘What is rubbish, sweetie ?’ Her mommy was pottering in the kitchen a little.
‘I keep making mistakes because I am spending too much time thinking about clowns. I need to get this finished before I move on to the next piece too’.
‘What is the next piece, you did not tell me’ Mommy smiled and picked up her homework.
‘Oh, no. Write five hundred words on the history of clowns’.
They looked at each other and rolled their eyes together.
‘Oh well, I suppose that the circus will be helpful then’ Mommy smiled at Boo.
Boo decided that writing about the clowns could wait until after the circus, so with a gigantic effort she pushed all thoughts of clowns out of her head and the pressed on with her homework.
At eight-thirty she was tucked up in her bed, mommy had read her a story about dashing princes and beautiful princesses and she was feeling very sleepy. Once her mommy had left the room however she tip-toed out of bed and opened the window a little, then before hopping back in to bed she had grabbed a couple of granola bars and two packets of smokey bacon crisps and put them beside her bed in case her dragon decided to visit in the night.
Her dragon was always hungry and she had long ago learned that leaving snacks out for him lead to less problems.
Just as Boo was about to close her eyes and go to sleep, she heard the familiar rustle of dragon wings being folded. If you have never heard the sound it sounds like the noise that a very large umbrella that is made of old leather book jackets closing after a heavy rain storm. Boo looked around her semi- dark room and noticed the familiar shadow of her dragon. She turned on her bed side light and smiled – he looked happy.
‘Hiya Dragon, where have you been ?” Boo smiled and offered her dragon a bag of smoky bacon crisps, which he inhaled almost instantly.
“Oh I’ve been a little busy, I was helping out the at Harry’s, his fryer broke down so I’ve been heating up the chip fat for a couple of evenings while Scottish Power got around to fixing the gas supply.”
Boo smiled again, she had tasted Harry’s chips, they were delicious.
‘Dragon, what do you know about clowns ?’
Her dragon look a little surprised, he, like Boo really did not like clowns very much.’Well I can tell you that they taste funny’, he grinned his thousand tooth grin, ’Oh and that old Joey Grimaldi started the whole white-face, red nose thing a while back.’ He thought a little more, ‘Come to think of it, it was not too far from here’. He pointed vaguely west-ward.
Boo grabbed her notebook and started to take notes.
Her dragon explained that Joe Grimaldi is widely considered to be the father of the modern clown, he invented many aspects of the modern clown persona, the white face, read makeup and many of the performance aspects too. Nearly all of these things were started in his performances at a Mother Goose panto.
‘Lets go and see a performance’ Her dragon had that glint in his eye that Boo recognized as him looking for an adventure.
Boo quickly changed back into her favorite plaid skirt, boots, coat and bobble-hat, grabbed her backpack and stuck her borrowed sunglasses on her nose.
‘Lets go’.
They swept out into the cool night air at great speed, once more heading for the heart of London.
Once more as they flew westwards, the scenery changed, the modern buildings game way to older ones and the street lamps became less bright and much sparser.
After just a few minutes, they landed in the center of London. The city was once more unrecognisable, there were no cars, just horse-drawn carriages. The street were mostly cobbled and somewhat muddy too. Boo was instantly fascinated by the clothes, all of the men wore suits, nobody wore jeans. The ladies all dressed in layer after layer of dresses and many seemed to carry parasols.
‘Where and when are we ?’ she asked.
‘We are at Dury Lane Theatre Royal, in the heart of London, it is February 23rd 1806, and we are here to see ‘Mother Goose’. This will be the very last performance of this pantomime. In three years time this theatre will also be gone, following a fire it will be rebuilt though.’
‘I’m sure that Mommies boyfriend has told me all about seeing punk and rock bands here in the seventies and eighties’. Laughed Boo, ‘he is always going on about the Boom Town Rats playing here’.
‘Oh yes, Johnny Fingers was a great keyboard player’.
Boo looked surprised, ‘you liked that old rubbish too ? ‘
‘Oh yes, it was great in its day, Johnny always wore pyjamas too – did he tell you that’.
Boo rolled her eyes, ‘yes, many times’.
The unlikely couple made their way into the theatre, and up many flights of stairs to their own private box that afforded a great but somewhat distant view of the stage. ‘Yes, thats the worst thing about this theatre, the design was all wrong, it was way too big and the the iron curtain took up too much space so the audience could barely see anything.’
Boo settled in her seat, handed her dragon a snack and started sketching. She drew a picture of the stage, then how she imagined the audience would look to the actors.
Eventually the pantomime began, despite the older form of english, she found it easy to follow, Grimaldi played a fantastic part despite his clown makeup, the pantomime was great fun and and lasted for quite a long time. The audience loved it and there were all sorts of opportunities for participation.
After what seemed like hours it was all over, Boo had sketched many scenes and had almost run out of dragon snacks.
‘Time to go’, whispered her dragon and moments later they were flying eastwards once more, Boo was warm and tired but exhilarated.
She was also beginning to change her opinion on clowns.
….to be continued….