PURE Pre-IMAGINE-ATION

Steve and Mark at the press night of wycombe swan’s cinderella in 2022

“Long, long ago, in tweenie times of yore, imagine, if you will, a tell-tale time when a wish was made.” Young Stephen Boden dreams of becoming a professional pantomime producer.

 Every year he visits the pantomime at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry and strikes up a friendship with co-writer and dame extraordinaire, Iain Lauchlan. Iain and his co-writer and panto side-kick, Will Brenton, took over the Belgrade pantomime at Christmas 1989 and after a few years decided to buy the panto productions from the Belgrade and start their own company, Tell-Tale Theatre Productions, hiring sets, costumes and props initially, but with a view to producing panto productions of their own going forward.

Fun Song Factory was one of their television creations for the younger audience and, during Belgrade panto runs they created the television phenomenon, Tweenies. Being so busy with that ‘little’ project at Elstree Film Studios in Borehamwood, they need someone talented and enthusiastic to head up their new pantomime production company. Who better than Steve Boden?

They housed the sets they had accumulated in a local farmer’s large barn outside Banbury, each year requiring singular maintenance from the chirpy visits of local birds nesting in the eaves. From May 2000, they also rented a small industrial unit on the Beaumont Industrial Estate (no.10, ominously - prime) in Banbury, to house an office and store costumes. Basic beginnings.

Initially the business was set and costume hire, and when I joined Steve, part-time from November 2000 he was busy talking and taking every opportunity to network in the theatre world, looking for hire customers and production opportunities. Even at this relatively early stage he was hiring an entire production, including script, for a fifth year to the Roses Theatre in Tewkesbury. He had made a smaller, but duplicate Belgrade set for Jack and the Beanstalk.  There were now three animatronic giants and an early non-animatronic version, more sets from Bristol Old Vic and costumes and props were hired out that year to Boston, Cambridge, Truro, Croydon and Dunfermline.

By the summer of 2001 it was obvious that if the expansion was to continue apace, then bigger premises were required. With full military precision, Steve organised the big move from Banbury to a new home on Little Heath Industrial Estate in Coventry. For five days, Monday 20 to Friday 24 August 2001, two 45 foot Luckings (theatrical removals stalwarts) trucks journeyed between Banbury and Coventry clearing the unit and the barn into their new home. A team of seven was split to fill a truck in Banbury while Steve organised the unloading and logistics of the layout in Coventry. By Friday afternoon 95% of the barn was empty.

The Unit at Little heath which was the home of tell-tale / wish / imagine from 2001-2012

Paul Hulston, who had worked at the Belgrade building sets, had decided to set up his own scenery construction firm, PGH Scenic Workshop, and needed premises. He hired part of the new large unit, so was ‘on-hand’ to build full or part pantos as required and on site. A smart move for both businesses.

Will Brenton, a long-time friend of Susie McKenna, the Hackney pantomime writer and Director for twenty-one years from 1998, got Tell-Tale involved with Hackney Empire during their £20 million refurbishment. Steve steered two Christmas productions of Iain and Will’s television classic Fun Song Factory into the Hackney Empire studio The Bullion Room as the main theatre was full of builders.

We remained involved with Hackney after the re-opening with the provision of much of the physical production of their pantomimes with former Belgrade Theatre panto sets, until they were able to produce their own. Susie McKenna successfully wrote and directed them for 21 years.

Dick whittington at blackfriars arts centre in 2002 was steve’s debut as a panto producer and director

Steve’s powers of persuasion brought Susie onto the Tell-Tale stage in Hounslow. He was approached in August 2002 (only 2 weeks before his wedding to Sarah) by the Paul Robeson Theatre to provide a pantomime, late in the panto day, so he called in Susie, who re-wrote the Belgrade script for a smaller company, directed and played villain herself with West End friends experienced in panto. The relationship with Susie McKenna continued successfully with a showcase of Iain and Will’s compilation musical Funkenstein which played at Hackney in May 2004. I got to operate a follow-spot in a number one, Grade II listed theatre for a professional performance. We were few, but we were versatile under Mr Boden in those early days!

Whilst in Hounslow, I hosted a visit from Janice Blane (now Gilmour) who flew down from Kilmarnock in Ayrshire to Hounslow (not literally, as it has no airport…come on, panto time!) with a view to booking a Tell-Tale panto for the Palace Theatre, Kilmarnock, a relationship that began the next Christmas and is still going strong. The first of an ever-growing number of pantos in Scotland.

New Year 2001 saw Steve driving a small truck all the way from Coventry to Truro to retrieve our animatronic giant, Blunderbore, from Hall for Cornwall where Wayne Sleep was playing Dame. Sitting in the front row at the last performance very near the steps, ‘she’ chose me as her ‘boyfriend’ and bantered with me throughout the performance. I was spared the on-stage humiliation but was given a gift-wrapped tube of Rolos as a thank you, to keep us going on the journey back to Coventry.

Blunderbore also began a five-year relationship with panto stalwart Christopher Biggins. He was starring in Jack and the Beanstalk at Cambridge Arts Theatre, so we snuck a cheeky viewing to ensure that all was well, to be welcomed by name from the stage by Biggins in his Groups and Birthday Welcome List! This continued throughout his hirings and even now, long after the contracts ended, if we meet Christopher in the West End as everyone does tend to do, he always says hello. What a memory for faces and what a very special (panto) person.

The small town of Boston in Lincolnshire, surprisingly, became rather important to Tell-Tale. The 233 seat Blackfriars Arts Centre has an untouchable rear stage wall which is part of the building next door from where the Pilgrim Fathers set off for America in July 1620. Here Steve made his debut as a pantomime producer and director with Dick Whittington at Christmas 2002.

It was whilst driving cross-country from a panto matinee in Cambridge to Boston, in the dark and after torrential rain, that we foolishly took the shortcut. Big mistake.  No streetlights out in the country, we turned a corner, and drove straight into what looked like a lake! We couldn’t see where the road went, so we turned back to the main road and made it just in time to see the in-house Cinderella and to be offered the contract for the next Christmas!

At Christmas 2003, I took over as Director at Boston for Aladdin (and 2004 for Beauty and the Beast) as Steve secured and directed at Loughborough Town Hall and so began a very successful ten-year long tenure there.

Beauty and the beast at blackfriars Arts Centre in Boston, 2004

Each year in these early days, Steve and I travelled hundreds of miles each panto season to see our own sets on various stages, to view new sets for purchase or simply to experience the shows of other producers to compare with ours. On a successful trip to Derby Playhouse, we discovered a beautiful and practically sized Cinderella set with a flying coach and horse which Steve simply had to purchase. She has been a showpiece for him (and her subsequent sisters) ever since. Another favourite was the York Theatre Royal pantomimes, where Berwick Kaler was a local, nay national institution as Dame, Author and Director of an hilarious anarchic pantomime, the last night of which sold out in April!

When Tell-Tale Productions was sold to Entertainment Rights in 2005, theatre productions was part of that deal, so the contracted pantomimes that year had to be produced under a different name, and on 13th May 2005 WISH Theatre was born.

WISH Theatre was an acronym for the names of the 4 company directors – Will, Iain, Steve and Helen. When Steve and Sarah bought their business partners out to take full ownership of the company on 1st April 2009, the W, I and H we no longer part of the team, so they set about choosing a new name – and in a flash WISH was renamed as Imagine.

I moved on in 2006. I did, however, get to return as Director with Imagine in my hometown of Royal Leamington Spa in 2011 (Sleeping Beauty) and 2012 (Snow White).

Poster for Cinderella for The Palace Theatre Kilmarnock’s 2004 production.

Those early years were ‘small’ by comparison with today, but we beavered away, helping Steve develop and grow the company and were delighted when new venues came on board and ever evolving scripts were adapted to suit each venue and each town. It was almost like the ‘warm-up’ for Steve. He became Imagine and look where the next 18 years took him and his team.

When I created the programmes for those early pantomimes, the introductory page ended with the Tell-Take philosophy, which I quote here, as I think it still sums up Steve’s work today. Just bigger. Congratulations on your Imagine 18th, Steve and team Imagine. It was great to be a part of it along the way. Thank you.

“A Tell-Tale pantomime aims to be a traditional, good quality spectacle. Casts are made up of strong, capable actors who have good contact with their audience. Above all Tell-Tale creates a dedicated team including writers, directors, technicians and performers who have a good sense of fun. Now all they need is YOU the audience to join in and enjoy (as loudly as possible, please…..)”

 Mark Thorburn (Tell-Tale Theatre Productions / Wish Theatre 2000 to 2006)