Pantomime Season - Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho...

You will NOT believe what happened to me last week! It was the day of the pantomime to end all pantomimes and it was Christmas Eve, so everyone was excited.

I was working at Sunshine Retirement Village. I arrived nice and early as I wanted to go over the arrangements for the pantomime that we had been working on, a dress rehearsal of sorts. A good few residents were playing key parts so I wanted to make sure that they were fit and well and that none of the staff had gone on the sick with stage fright. We’d been practising forever and sent lots of glittery invitations out to everyone we could think of. We’d even sent one to the Mayor but he couldn’t attend because he was already starring in his own local council pantomime as the back end of the donkey – no joke, that’s what we were told!

Anyway, there I was flicking through the rota when the night nurse came in all flustered and told me that the Home Manager had called in sick and that I was in charge of the home for the next 12 hours, seriously!

I mentally ran through all of the things that I needed to do as the manager, as well as the nurse-in-charge and as well as Director. I ended up ringing Charisma at the agency in a bit of a panic. She was her usual calming and concerned self and told me to ‘stop being a baby and get on with it’. With that kind of encouragement, how could I fail?!

So off I trotted to open the Manager’s office to see if I could glean any clues as to my managerial duties that day. I was seething when I saw the list she’d left me. There was a complaint to investigate, a pre-admission assessment to do, CQC notifications to submit following the death of a resident yesterday and a number of daily audits to complete. She had planned this sickness, knowing that I was going to be in! I could see her now stuffing her turkey, dancing to Last Christmas from her ‘sick bed’. If I got hold of her she’d be wishing it was her last Christmas.

Getting my temper under control, I thought I’d better ring the hospital first to see if they could fit me in during the morning. I got an earful from the matron. It turned out that our illustrious Manager had promised to do the assessment on Thursday – it was now Sunday and they were desperate for this poor patient to be anywhere but in hospital for Christmas.  Apparently, she was ‘bed blocking’ and there was a number of patients being cared for in the corridors on trolleys, due to the influx of admissions caused by the winter flu so they needed the bed. I felt uber intimidated so said I would be there as soon as possible.

I’d just put the phone down when my door burst open and Mrs D’s daughter-in-law threw herself in. She started ranting about all sorts; how Mrs D wasn’t being looked after properly and how the knickers she had bought her for Christmas were being worn by someone else! I thought it would be wise to write all the details down and then familiarise myself with the Complaints procedure later on, as I didn’t want to let this relative know that I had never dealt with anything like this before. Anyway, after much questioning and a boxful of tissues it turned out that the daughter-in-law was in fact most aggrieved at the fact that she herself had not been chosen to play the part of Snow White in the pantomime. I was head down, scribbling this all down furiously, wondering how on earth I was going to respond to a woman who had the complexion of a spit-roast chicken? Three foreign holidays every year was not going to convince people that she was Snow White but how was I going to explain that to someone who clearly thought they’d missed their theatrical calling in life? To be honest, I bottled it. I told her I would look into it and that although it would be too late to change anything this year, we would consider her for the starring role next year. God knows what the pantomime will be next year!

As she left, I grabbed my jacket and the pre-admission assessment document from the desk. After a full assessment and arrangements to admit the lady in time for the pantomime I rushed back to the home.

Preparations were in full swing and before I knew it, the new lady had arrived and it was pantomime time. Mrs G, who was playing Snow White, had been wheeled in to the lounge in her profiling bed. Her daughter had dyed her hair black especially but unfortunately had managed to get dye on her ears, so she resembled Minnie Mouse, especially when her daughter insisted on putting a big red bow in her hair. Due to her soft diet, we also couldn’t let her bite the big red apple either, so we’d had to substitute it for a banana. The staff were playing the dwarves and had all been aptly cast. Imagine ‘Dopey Dawn’ and ‘Sleepy Shannon’, the latter having recently had a disciplinary for sleeping on the night shift was. I’d also learned that the maintenance man had wanted to be the narrator, but with his recent diagnosis of Tourette’s excuses had been made in favour of Sweary Bob in the kitchen. All the signs of success were there….

Everyone arrived just before 2pm with a buzz of excitement. We had made a stage and curtain and everyone was in place ready for the curtain to go up. The residents who weren’t playing a part made up the choir with the staff and were practicing the opening song with a few farts and coughs to egg them on. As the substitute Manager for the day, I opened the performance and thanked everyone for coming. To great applause the curtain rose… and so did Mrs G. She was about 6 feet in the air and rising (Mr N playing with the bed control while Dopey Dawn tried to wrestle it from him). She must have got so excited when she succeeded that she shouted her line out ‘It’s off to work we go!’

God only knows what buttons she pressed but I feared Mrs G was about to become a contortionist whether she liked it or not. Thankfully the audience thought it was all part of the performance and were roaring with laughter; even more thankfully Snow White slept through it all. The rest of the performance went without a hitch, apart from Mrs G spitting out the banana and Mr N getting a bit amorous during the wake up kiss. Oh, and Sweary Bob went a bit maverick with the narration and it was peppered with colourful language. The maintenance man looked rather smug as I cringed from my seat on the front row.  

I had a good titter to myself on the bus home that evening. I still keep giggling to myself when I think of Mrs G gliding upwards and then spitting the banana squarely into Sleepy Shannon’s gaping mouth! I wouldn’t have missed it for the world; I just hope the Manager knows what she missed today – a right royal performance.

Merry Christmas everyone.

If you enjoyed this article, then so will your friends, so why not share it...