With more than a decade of panto-making under his belt, McKnight has learned that it’s “like a good Pixar movie”.
SHORTLY before I am due to interview actor, writer and director extraordinaire Johnny McKnight, I see the breaking news that comedian Joe Lycett has made the eye-catching announcement that, unless former England footballer David Beckham renounces his £10 million deal to be an ambassador for Qatar during the forthcoming World Cup, the comedy star will shred £10,000 of his own money.
McKnight’s concern is that, should Lycett shred the cash by his self-imposed deadline of 12 noon today, some right-wing commentators – who, let’s say, don’t exactly have the LGBTQ+ community’s best interests at heart – will use the incident as an excuse to attack a supposedly “woke” comedian for destroying money during a cost of living crisis.
McKnight and I agree – both on the complexities of the issue and the need for more open discussion of the vicious homophobia of the Qatari state .The primary purpose of our get together is to discuss McKnight’s latest pastiche pantomime for Glasgow’s Tron Theatre. Titled The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the show is, of course, inspired by the famous 1939 movie starring Judy Garland.
“The first show I ever did in amdram was The Wiz [the 1974 soul musical by Charlie Smalls, William F Brown et al], and I played the Lion,” the actor remembers. Following that, his debut at the MacRobert, in 2005, was in the Stirling theatre’s Christmas version of The Wizard of Oz.McKnight has, he explains, “always put off doing it as a panto”.
The writer admits that his love of the film has had a slightly restraining influence on his creative process. “I haven’t gone as anarchic with it as I thought I would,” he admits.
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