Showtime for Peasant Girl 1, 2 and 3

In a flurry of feathers, fairies and fluffed lines, FIONA McCANNmakes her panto debut and discovers it's a lot of fun, but a lot of hard work. Oh no it isn't! Oh yes, it is

GUESS WHAT boys and girls? I was in a panto! (Oh no you weren't!) Oh yes I was, yes I was, YES I WAS! The Cheerios Panto at the Tivoli no less. Moi, sharing a stage with Dublin panto legend Sammy Sausages, aka Alan Hughes, and one-time Big Brother winner turned television presenter Brian Dowling.

Not to mention Etcetera singer Sinead Mulvey, model Pippa O’Connor and all manner of actors and dancers, big and small, who joined me on stage for my glamorous debut as Peasant Girl 1, 2 and 3 in Cinderella. The lights! The music! The glitter! The applause! But before all that, boys and girls, there was a lot of hard work and for the show’s producers, a full year of preparation. Writer Karl Broderick got cracking on the bones of a script over six months ago. The golden rule this year? The big bad R word was not to be mentioned once in the entire show. Have a problem with that? Take it up with Sammy Sausages.

DAY ONE

Upstairs in St Nicholas of Myra Community Hall, Dowling and John Lovett, who play the ugly Nolan sisters Bridie and Buffy, prance around in front of a wall of mirrors bumping into each other while costume designer Florrie O’Brien runs among them with the measuring tape.

As director Simon Delaney (ooh! It's your man from Bachelors Walk!) waves the script and blocks out positions, you'd have to squint to see how this ad hoc ensemble who spend half the time bent double laughing at their own mistakes and the other half laughing at Broderick's gag-tastic script, is going to come together as a professional pantomime in time for opening night in three weeks. Dowling is clearly taking his dame role with a large dollop of panto humour, and for every fluffed line or forgotten cue he inserts the standard response: "Who won Big Brother 2001? It was me!" with a mock diva flounce.

My lines are in the opening scene, and comprise a short bit of banter with Dandini, Prince Charming’s sidekick, played by – oh no it’s not! – my old schoolmate, the dashing Kevin Hynes. I have all of five lines, plucked from three different characters to allow for my one-night walk-on. How hard can it be? Harder than you’d think. It’s not just the lines that are challenging: it’s the “enter stage left” and “exit stage right” and “watch out for who’s behind you” (there’s always someone behind you in panto). It all makes me suddenly appreciative of the talent around me. After a few run-throughs I kinda get it. Florrie measures me up for my costume, and I’m let off to learn my lines.

DAY TWO

I’m in again 10 days later, 10 days during which the cast has been working hard on dance routines with choreographer Tracey Martin and getting to know each other and the crew: that’s 50-odd people working to put this fairytale together. Rehearsals are now – gasp! – on the Tivoli stage which is slowly taking shape, a big colourful proscenium arch already in place with plenty of hammering and sawing. The theatre is a swarm of crisp-crunching children, and that’s just the cast members: there are 24 involved, from all around the country, who share out the nightly performances between them. The adults have no such luxury and are in for every one of the 62 performances, with just two days off over the entire Christmas season. Now that’s commitment, folks.

Backstage, the costume room looks like a disco ball exploded over the couches, all bling and sequins, with feathers peeping out from piles of coloured fabric. Florrie fits me up with my peasant girl costume and I'm ushered on stage to run through my lines. My lines. DEAR GOD THE LIGHTS, THE LIGHTS, WHAT ARE MY LINES? Thankfully, it's only a rehearsal: I'm prompted by a patient cast and clomp awkwardly into place. A seven-year-old feels sorry for me and takes charge of my awkward stage exit by grabbing my hand and showing me the way out. Gawny, Panto is hard.

Everybody else is lepping about to a Riverdance number that has just been inserted. Apparently it’s par for the course for the script to be tweaked a number of times during rehearsals and even during preview nights, before the final version is settled upon. I am amazed at their energy. It’s all I can do to remember five lines. “Oh Dandini, will Prince Charming ever come to visit?” I’m just not sure of my motivation as Peasant Girl 1, 2 and 3. And it’s only 10 days to showtime.

THE BIG DAY

I arrive an hour before curtain up with knocking knees. Backstage it’s a flurry of preparation, the girls’ dressing room all powder puffs and pouting lips, while the boy’s dressing room is – well, more of the same, really. Behind the stage is a countertop mile of wigs, props and what looks like a mannequin’s leg, all primed for scene changes and costume switches.

The audience have started filing in, and a peep through the stage door suggests an army of children marching to their seats. Intimidated? Petrified, frankly.

Production manager Gerry McCann gives us the half hour call. It’s time to get things started . . . Here’s Vinny Osborne to mic me up, and suddenly it’s curtain up. Buffy swooshes by in a bright green wig and orange feathered ensemble, and purses his/her lips at me. “Watch you don’t catch the theatre bug,” s/he warns me and turns with a feathered flounce: “I used to be in IT.”

My cue comes and I’m ON STAGE. “Oh Dandini, will Prince Charming ever come to visit?” Dandini ignores me. Turns out my mic wasn’t switched on. PANIC! I try again; this time I’m audible and the show goes on as it always must. All too soon, I’m done and I sneak out front to watch things from the other side. It’s pure magic. The children are enraptured, the cast’s energy contagious, with Dowling and Lovett ad-libbing to beat the band, and every child in the house in Sammy Sausage’s thrall.

Backstage again, watching the Nolan sisters strip costumes off and wiggle into new ones with impressive alacrity, I’m glum to be done so soon. Dancers to the rescue: Sinead, Paul, Emma, Karl and Amy hustle me into the boy’s dressing room, and ask if I’d like to go back on. Would I wha’? In 10 minutes flat, they teach me the dance routine to ‘Can You Feel It’ and I follow them back on stage for an all singing, all dancing number that is hands down the best fun I’ve had in my professional career. My inner Billie Barry kid takes over and I am high on showbiz. When the finale comes, the cast give me the diva treatment, and I even get my own bow. It’s my little girl dream come true.

I sashay off stage with Dowling on one side and Lovett on the other, while the kids hoot and the mammies and daddies clap. Talk about a fairytale, to be a momentary part of the glitz, the glamour and the outrageous fun of it all. I don’t know how the cast are going to keep it up for 62 performances, but one night in Cinderella ensured at least this journalist turned peasant girl will live happily ever after.

The Cheerios Panto Cinderellaopens Tuesday, with previews daily until then