Andy Gray as Buttons, King's Theatre, Edinburgh

The Guardian 19 January 2021

It was 2010 and the world of Scottish theatre was reeling from the sudden death of Gerard Kelly, one of the great panto stars. I called a grieving Andy Gray, who had first worked with Kelly on John Byrne’s Still Life in 1982, to get his reaction.

“He did it with such gusto, such conviction,” Gray said of his friend. “A lot of performers say, ‘Oh, I’ve got to do pantomime again,’ and it’s looked down upon, but if you approach it with any cynicism you make it a difficult job for yourself. You’ve got to approach it with ‘I will have fun doing this.’ If you go on thinking, ‘This will be good fun,’ you get the energy from the audience.” [READ MORE]

By Mark Fisher

MARK FISHER is a freelance theatre critic and feature writer based in Edinburgh and has written about theatre in Scotland since the late-1980s. He is a theatre critic for The Guardian, a former editor of The List magazine and a frequent contributor to the Scotsman and other publications. He is the co-editor of the play anthology Made in Scotland (1995), and the author of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide (2012) and How to Write About Theatre (2015) – all Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. He is also the editor of The XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls and What Do You Call That Noise? An XTC Discovery Book (both Mark Fisher Ltd).