Why “poor bugger” Gary Oldman kept falling unconscious during his first stage role: “Bit of a lightweight”
It’s much more of a British phenomenon than a global trend, but regardless of how popular it is, one fact of pantomime is that it’s usually the haven of veteran stage actors, has-beens, those who never were, and former film and TV favourites in need of a job. Of course, there are always exceptions to rules, and one of the most famous was a young Gary Oldman.
After graduating from a London college with a degree in acting in 1979, the future Academy Award winner faced the daunting prospect of building a career for himself. As tends to be the case, treading the boards was his first port of call, and by the end of the year, he’d been cast in a panto production of Dick Whittington and his Cat.
On paper, an actor fresh out of drama school playing the title role on stage in the nation’s capital seems like a good thing, except Oldman was the cat. He wasn’t exactly accustomed to wearing heavy costumes, and spending his evenings sweating buckets inside a heavy, hairy, and altogether uncomfortable feline getup didn’t bring out his best work.
In fact, it barely brought out any work, because the poor fella couldn’t stay conscious. Trapped beneath the weight of his hirsute accoutrements, Oldman developed the unfortunate habit of repeatedly fainting. It wasn’t the best way of making an impression on his more experienced colleagues, but they were at least able to cover for him.
“He fainted because of the heat in the costume,” co-star Berwick Kaler told the York Press. “I was always dragging him, saying, ‘Oh, the puss has gone to sleep’. Poor bugger.” It wasn’t the most auspicious start to his performative days, but he deserves points for his perseverance, because a less-determined actor might well have said, ‘Fuck this,’ and decided to look for another gig.
Kaler acknowledged that “Gary has gone on to become one of our greatest screen actors,” with a caveat: “I’m afraid he was a bit of a lightweight when it came to pantomime.” She remembers “at least three occasions” when he hit the deck like a sack of spuds, forcing her to improvise and tell the audience the cat had decided to go for an impromptu nap in the middle of the show.
Many of the United Kingdom’s greatest-ever actors began life on stage before graduating to the screen, and Oldman was no different. However, it’s worth wondering if constantly fainting in Dick Whittington had any bearing on his decision to avoid the theatre almost entirely once he’d broken through in movies.
After all, he continued performing in various plays for the next few years, but after securing his first attention-grabbing film role in Sid and Nancy, he wouldn’t return to the stage for almost 40 years until he headlined a run of Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape in 2025. On the plus side, he wasn’t offered a role in Tom Hooper’s infamous Cats, which might have caused him to experience some severe flashbacks.
