Pantomimes are after all supposed to be funny, but sometimes you get a little more than you bargained for. Here is a tale from the past when things didn't quite go as planned...

I'm sure you all know what "dry ice" is? In case you don't, basically it is frozen carbon dioxide, which is extremely cold and must be handled with extreme care.

The machine used to blast lots of this dry ice around making it into "fluffy white clouds" drifting all over your stage is basically a giant kettle, holding about 20 gallons (ok about 90 litre's to be politically correct) of water, complete with "chip shop" style frying basket and a side handle. This "kettle" takes anything up to a couple of hours to heat up to near boiling (depending on how many hamsters you have peddling for their food like their lives depended on it, to generate enough electricity to heat the water).

I feel at this point more helpful information is required for those of you who may not understand these things. When the extremely cold carbon dioxide (dry ice) comes into contact with the extremely hot water, it turns from a block of ice back into a gas... instantly... and leaves the "kettle" at great force as the gas expands...

Are you all following so far? good! You have to remember at this stage in our theatrical experiences (when ABBA were always in the charts!) none of us had ever used a "dry ice" machine before, so disaster, potentially loomed!

So for this particular performance of our pantomime, after some "Fine Tuning" as you do!... "Dave" as he shall be known, decided to do things a different way, his own way (well it relieves the boredom) and so the fate of that evenings show was set, along with the scenery (set — scenery? oh keep up!).

The dry ice machine had to be located in a room behind the backdrop, and this room (we'll call it "Dave's Room") had to be in near total darkness, therefore a torch was the only form of light to see what he was doing...

Having figured out at the dress rehearsal that one had to get the ice in, and the lid on the machine in a bit of a hurry, (or face the prospect of a vertical jet ice, gas, call it what you will, blasting out of the top of the machine - not unlike the effect of a rocket launch!!!)... Dave was now happy!... That sorted... all seemed well... too well...

As I said... "Dave" decided to do things "his own way" this fateful night. He decided for reasons that remain his secret to this day, to move the pipe that fed the dry ice onto the stage to a new location. Now, he deemed it not necessary to tell anyone about this "executive decision" of his, which under normal circumstances would not have mattered too much! However this night was to be an exception. As the scene requiring the dry ice progressed, one of the young dancers somehow managed to find herself on the wrong side of the stage, at the wrong time, just as the dry ice started to flow, and her dancing cue was too close for comfort.

Only seconds away from performing her dance routine and on the wrong side of the stage, clever girl! (at least I think that's what Dave called out as I recall) in her panic she decided to take a short cut behind the backdrop, where directly in her path lay the dry ice pipe (at this point you're ahead of me - for anyone who doesn't know, I'll explain a minor technical problem with the way a dry ice machine functions - basically once you drop the ice into the machine it's a little like firing a rocket, once started you can't easily stop it).

Now, yours truly is doing the lighting for this particular show, and being an almost responsible adult (ok so there was no one else available!) I had the job of telling "Ice station Dave" (as he couldn't see anything from where he was back stage) how to regulate as best he could the flow of ice onto the stage.

All was well for say about 30 seconds or so of the start of the ice flow during the scene. All necessary dancers were by now safely on stage, doing what they do best. The ice started to thin out a little too much, so I said quietly over the comms system... "More ice Dave" and repeated this several times, at this point I had no idea of the drama back stage. When nothing seemed to be happening I'm wondering, has our Dave headed for an early bar as the interval was fast approaching? I then get a bit of a garbled message back saying something along the lines of "Dave's kind of busy at the moment - you want ice? there's plenty of ice back here - as much as you want!" accompanied by hysterical laughter...

Remember the little dancer with the dainty feet??? who in her panic had taken a short cut behind the backdrop? You guessed! she managed to step on the pipe which was attached to the front of the dry ice machine pulling it off, the consequences of which meant the said dry ice machine pumped ice with great ferocity into "Dave's" cosy little back stage room, housing amongst other things... a Grand Piano.

Dave, quickly realising what she had done, had grabbed the pipe and rammed it back on the end of the dry ice machine... what he didn't know at the time was that our little dancer had actually managed not only to pull off the pipe with her dainty little feet, but also to completely flatten a section of it at the same time, which meant that this previously friendly dry ice machine (or oversized kettle) had how infact turned into a high pressure gas monster which was by now trying to bounce around in the dark like some mutant washing machine, and if that wasn't bad enough, had absolutely nowhere to expel its contents, except out of what used to be a seal around the lid.

By this time a few more desperate seconds had elapsed, and our Dave was truly "up to his neck in it" and the dry ice machine itself had long since vanished beneath the clouds blowing off its crushed pipe at some point during this mayhem...

What about the grand piano? I hear the musicians amongst you cry, well sadly, it had all but disappeared too. Fear not though as I was reliably informed of it's safe reappearance about half way through the interval.

Back to the show... Being a bit of a hero our Dave took a deep breath and went under his home made cloud to fumble around in the pitch black, and somehow managed to find, straighten out, reattach the pipe and then reappear as if by magic from this foggy abyss... and as they say... the show went on, with the audience along with most of the cast, blissfully unaware of that evenings back stage drama.

Until next time... If indeed there is a next time... fairwell.

Submitted by Joe Mitchell from Soundhire. Soundhire is a small theatrical sound and special effects company. They supply equipment for hire and sales to amateur and professional theatre users.