HE has been performing in panto for 25 years but this year it's a little bit of a more grown-up affair for north Belfast actor Gerard McCabe, who both directs and acts in Aladdin - The Adult Panto, currently on stage at the Waterfront Hall.
The festive season marks the usual madness and mayhem for McCabe who gained his Master's degree in Directing from the Lir National Academy of Dramatic Art at Trinity College Dublin in 2020 and has directed all three of GBL Productions' 'adult' pantos, including The Baltic Princess and last year's wisecracking Cinderella remake, Cinder on Tinder.
"With Aladdin, I get to curse, sing and shout as loud as I want and it's great fun," enthuses the actor, who is back in costume as a wild-eyed, red-haired, garishly over-dressed Widow Twankey in a production set in Belfast's Funderland instead of the traditional Chinese laundry.
"I would say we stay close to the traditional storyline and roughly follow it – but not quite," teases McCabe who describes the show as more of an "adult Christmas cabaret".
"So, you will find Aladdin, Jasmine, Jafar and friends in the amusements in Belfast and instead of Aladdin rubbing a lamp, he rubs a scratch card - and wouldn't you just know it, a genie appears to him...
"The writers, Diona Doherty and Sean Hegarty, had never actually seen a panto of Aladdin before so they have really turned the story on its head. Aladdin and Jasmine meet in Funderland - their eyes meet on the rollercoaster and then the real action takes off…"
This being a Doherty-Hegarty script, raucous 'Norn Iron-isms' and not-so-subtle innuendo thunder through the dialogue as loudly as the aforementioned rollercoaster – and if you're sitting in the front row, then you're definitely in for a "slagging" assures McCabe, practising his evil laugh.
"Ach, sure, it's a chance to forget about life-as-we-know-it for a couple of hours and just have fun," he argues. "And, I've worked with the best in panto – May McFettridge at the Grand Opera House, and William Caulfield, so I have perfected my slagging of the audience quite well."
A few liberties are taken too – an 'Adrian Dunbar' is referenced, a brother of 'Jafar Dunbar' "who is trying to get his hands on the scratch card" and make some wishes of his own.
"There's a lovely twist on the story; it's great craic," enthuses McCabe who studied Performing Arts at the old BIFHE college (now Belfast Met) and came up through the Rainbow Theatre Factory in Belfast. He left school at 17 and only decided to go back to study after starting work as an aerospace trainee at Shorts and "not liking it very much".
The real epiphany came earlier, though, when his mother took him to see Marie Jones's Stones in My Pockets as a starry-eyed teenager already well used to evenly splitting his Saturdays between football with the boys and acting with the (mostly) girls at the Rainbow Factory.
"My mum brought me to see Stones, a couple of years after it started – when it starred Conleth Hill and Sean Campion - and I was just blown away," he recalls.
"I immediately thought that this was what I wanted to do and I wanted to be as good as Conleth. I think it was the mix of tragedy and humour that appealed and the way the actors switched so ably and so convincingly between all the many different characters they were playing in one production. It was mesmerising."
Serendipitously, he ended up in Marie Jones's seminal drama earlier this year, acting in the 25th anniversary production for Barn Theatre at the Lyric with Shaun Blaney - and notably directed by Jones's son, Matthew McElhinney. McCabe won rave reviews for his performance.
"It is a role I have wanted to do all my life and I would say it is a defining role," ventures McCabe, more seriously.
"There is a similar sort of energy to it as with panto, and farcical elements too. Also, doing Stones, I learned to just relax and say the lines without forcing them – they are automatically funny when you play them straight; they work because the writing is so good."
Always thankful for the life chances thrown at him – a "fun" part in the CBS Touched by an Angel show with Roma Downey is enthusiastically recounted, with McCabe flown to the US and given the full Hollywood treatment for the Life Before Death episode in 2000 – he started up Pintsized Productions with actress Bronagh Waugh when the two were finding it difficult to land parts in Northern Ireland.
"The idea at the start was just to help us get work," he admits, "as there wasn't much for emerging actors back in 2007 and all the same people were getting the usual parts.
"Then, after we both got two or three good roles behind us, we realised we had done ourselves out of work and couldn't hire ourselves any longer... because that was the rule – once you had a couple of professional jobs under your belt, it was time to move on.
"Pintsized Productions has continued, though, and it's something I'm very proud of. It is still going strong and funded by the Arts Council here because it is seen as a good thing for young actors coming back from drama school who want to work at 'home'."
Today he is artistic director of Soda Bread, established so he could indulge another passion – directing. With it, he has produced many of Northern Ireland's critically acclaimed plays, among them another Marie Jones classic, A Night in November, for a 25th anniversary celebration in 2021.
Next up in the new year he celebrates a special anniversary of his own with a return to Replay Theatre with its production of Mirrorball which opens in March at the Lyric as part of Belfast's Children's Festival.
Starring Matthew Cavan (also performing with McCabe in Aladdin), the "brand new musical" is based on real-life experiences of Cavan and his drag persona, Cherrie Ontop, and "celebrates creativity, authenticity and the power of imagination to make a better world for ourselves".
"My debut was with Replay Theatre Company when I was 18 – they were the first theatre to hire me," McCabe says. "Now, 25 years later, it feels like coming full circle with this new production.
"The first show I did with them was an award-winning play called Sinking by Gary Mitchell about bullying and it toured the schools. Mirrorball is going to be another great show, this time about diversity and accepting people with all kinds of differences.
"It is also set to tour the schools as well as running at the Lyric - and I am excited that for the first time I get to play a 'baddie'. I look down my nose at the drag artist character and I'm looking forward to being a wee bit nasty, to be honest, because, for some reason, I always tend to get stuck with comedy - but you can't be funny all the time."
:: Aladdin - the Adult Panto continues at the Waterfront Hall until December 30. waterfront.co.uk
