A Nostalgic Journey Through “Tinsel Town”
Twenty years ago, I found myself binge-watching a TV series on DVD for the first time. At my friend’s house in a village outside Harrogate, I was completely absorbed by 24, watching Jack Bauer shoot his way through the show. We only made it to episode six before falling asleep, ready for school the next day.
Fast forward to the start of this year, and Kiefer Sutherland has been making headlines in nearby market towns like Knaresborough and Wetherby. He and Rebel Wilson are in the area filming Tinsel Town, a British Christmas film centered around pantomimes. By March, I had the opportunity to visit a Leeds studio where they were filming, and there was Sutherland dressed as Buttons on a stage, dancing to Katy Perry’s Roar with the Cinderella cast. The scene was repeated about 15 times, creating a surreal full-circle moment that made me half-expect him to pull out a pistol on the ugly stepsisters.
Sutherland was in Paris when I explained the connection later. “That’s very funny,” he laughed down the phone. “I ended up loving it; Leeds is a fantastic city.” Locals might have spotted him on weekend walks around the university or at the pub he filmed in. “They had regular customers in, and they were just being really nice.” He also continued his obsession with Greggs sausage rolls, which started during his tour with his band – “it was like the heavens had opened up” – and arranged for the bakers’ van to visit the set. Does he have a gold card? “I did for one tour. It was great, but I didn’t use it. I could afford my own sausage roll and a Steak Bake!”
A Feelgood Family Comedy
Tinsel Town is a feelgood family comedy directed by Chris Foggin (Bank of Dave, Fisherman’s Friends). Sutherland takes on a meta role as Bradley Mack, a washed-up Hollywood action star who thinks a stint in the West End will save his career. However, when he arrives in England, he realizes his stage debut will be in a small theatre production of Cinderella in a northern town called Stoneford. “It’s funny to watch his descent into actor hell,” says Sutherland. But it’s moving too, as Bradley realizes he needs to get himself together for his semi-estranged daughter. “It’s a lesson to a lot of parents out there who might actually be the children in that relationship. Certainly there were times where I could definitely say the same thing about myself.”
Ultimately, the film is a sweet call to arms to save pantomime and a “booo!” to anyone who sneers at it. The ensemble includes stage icons such as Derek Jacobi and Meera Syal. “My first glimpse of theatre was attending panto at a little church group – there was nothing else to do in the village I grew up in,” says Syal, taking a breather in her trailer on set. “I’ll never forget the feeling of the lights going down, the music starting, the actors coming on.” She played Fairy Mermaid (“obviously”) in Birmingham Hippodrome’s production of Peter Pan in 2018. “Wearing a fishtail three times a day – you really had to work out the toilet breaks. It’s really hard work. But you get that joy of seeing kids absolutely spellbound. It’s very life-affirming.”
Panto isn’t just about tradition – it keeps the arts financially afloat. “The revenue from those pantomimes keep those theatres going for the whole year,” says eight-time Olivier award nominee Maria Friedman. “I haven’t got enough time to tell you how dismayed I am about where the arts are – it’s just terrifying.” Friedman starred in Chicester Festivals’s 1982 production of Jack and the Beanstalk with “greats of comedy” Frankie Howerd and June Whitfield. In Tinsel Town she plays the fairy godmother. Her version of the classic panto goodie? “She loves a drink, she loves a joint, she’s permanently on heat. She really feels she’s in with a shot with Brad.”
A Star-Studded Cast
Rebel Wilson cheerily walks on set at the end of the day in a green jumpsuit, charming the crew around her. She plays choreographer Jill, who champions the performance from the stage wings. And yes, she attempts a Yorkshire accent. “The Yorkshire accent is hard,” Wilson admits to me later. “But I tried to do my best!” (Last year, she confessed: “I don’t think my Yorkshire accent is that great.”) Her favorite bit of dialect? “My classic Yorkshire line was, ‘Hiya luv!’” She got into the local spirit by joining Sutherland in loving the local delicacies: “I can’t go past a Greggs sausage roll but I also like their doughnuts any time of the day.”
Jill helps Bradley embrace theatre life. “It was fantastic working with Rebel,” says Sutherland. “Obviously her comedic skills are world renowned but she also brought real heart to the film. I don’t want to speak for her, but I think it was exciting for her on that level.” As well as singing a lively Christmas number for the first time in a film (a good use of his country music success), Sutherland shares a schmaltzy waltz with Wilson: “It was a bit foreign for both of us but I think we had fun.”
Wilson is no stranger to pantoland: “I have fun memories of seeing pantomimes in Australia when I was a kid. They were on at our local Returned and Services League club – my relatives fought in the wars. My mum also said that when I was two, she took me to my first pantomime in Sydney. They asked for volunteers from the audience and I ran up on stage and sang a song. She was shocked. I was normally so shy.”
A Magical Experience for the Cast
What was working with Hollywood stars in Yorkshire like for the rest of the British cast? By all accounts: lovely. “Kiefer actually told us about a great pie shop [in Wetherby],” says Ray Fearon, who plays the baron. “The funniest moment was a scene with Mawaan [Rizwan] driving a VW minibus,” adds Lucien Laviscount, who plays Prince Charming. “Kiefer was in the front seat – Mawaan hadn’t driven manual for a good few years and tried to get the car started. We’re all in stitches in the back and Kiefer’s just breathing down his neck saying, ‘More gas! More gas!’ He stalled it about eight times.”
However, the best scene for viewers is undoubtedly the pathetic scrap between Sutherland and Danny Dyer, who plays Jill’s troubled hard-man ex. “Danny, I absolutely adore him,” says Sutherland. “He’s known as a tough guy in his films; I had 24 in my back pocket. It was just like, look, the way this is going to be funny is that these two guys really can’t fight very well at all. They’re the worst fighters on the planet but it ended up being one of my favourite fight sequences ever in my career.”
It was a bizarre moment for Foggin to direct: “Everyone has to work with Danny Dyer: the love and enthusiasm he brings is just brilliant. Them two got on straight away. We filmed some scenes at [a] Wakefield theatre and in between rehearsals they would go off and fight with a stunt coordinator.”
Foggin speaks from his Hertfordshire home over Zoom. After 2022’s This Is Christmas, Tinsel Town is the second festive film from the director, who was born in Sunderland and grew up in Durham. Is he the northern Richard Curtis? “He’s the reason I wanted to make movies. He’s a bit of an idol to me,” Foggin smiles. “When I think of Christmas, I think of Love Actually. I always wanted to make something – and who knows if this is going to be that film – like that: without looking at the TV listings, no matter what happens, Love Actually is always replayed at some point in the Christmas period, and the whole family still gets together to watch it.”
A Unique Perspective on Pantomime
Sutherland was the first choice, says Foggin, and he immediately got the assignment: “He’s got a lot of [British] sensibilities.” It makes sense: he was born in London and his grandparents were Scottish (his Falkirk-born politician grandfather, Tommy Douglas, went on to become the “father of universal healthcare” in Canada), which means he’s been back and forth all his life. Wilson, meanwhile, has spent a lot of time in the UK recently. Responding to reports that she has relocated to the Cotswolds, she says she remains rooted in LA. “My family and I love London,” she says. “I’ve been getting into UK TV shows like Slow Horses and Downton Abbey (yes, I know I’m a bit late) and the Celebrity Traitors.”
But hold on. Sutherland’s transatlantic background makes an earlier revelation he made even more shocking: “I’ve never seen a pantomime. I was so bummed. We arrived in the first week of January. I dropped my bags off, went for a walk around town, and one of the first things I saw was a big poster for a pantomime. I got so excited: ‘Oh my gosh, I’m gonna go see the panto tonight!’ It was a big part of my research. Of course, it had closed the night before.”
There’s always this year though, right? “That I will be able to do.” First though, it’s business as usual in Paris: “I’m about to go to a fight rehearsal for this film I’m doing.”
Tinsel Town is on Sky Cinema from 5 December.
