How Cinderella – the Panto changed a company director’s life, making her more confident about taking on non-traditional roles

Cinderella – the Panto was the Hong Kong Players’ 2015 pantomime, part of a tradition of family slapstick musical comedy productions from the company and its antecedents that date back to 1889. Shafin Azim, a director of family trading company Peakward Enterprises, who is also an actor, and has been one of the principal cast members of Hong Kong Players pantomimes for several years, including this year’s, Jack and the Beanstalk – the Panto, tells Richard Lord how it changed her life.

I’m from Bangladesh but I moved to Hong Kong more than 30 years ago. If we count school shows, I’ve been acting since I was one. Outside school, I started quite late, in 2009, a couple of years after university. My first role was in a panto: Aladdin.

I had watched the panto in 2008, and it was just so fun, with all the fourth wall breaking and interacting with the audience. I thought, “Let’s try this next year.” The auditions came up, I went to Kellett School to audition for the chorus, and I was the one adult with loads of kids, which was embarrassing. The next day I got a call from the director, saying, “Would you like to be [lead female role] Jasmine?” I said, “Are you sure?”

I hadn’t auditioned for the role. But when it came to the performance, I was totally fine. I just loved the thrill of being on stage. Acting definitely helps me to be confident and lets me say things I wouldn’t normally. I feel more present, more visible – and more comfortable being visible.

In 2014, I was in The Bluebird of Happiness, a play from the early 1900s that was turned into a musical by a Philippine theatre company called Trumpets. That one was so magical. Then, when I was doing Cinderella, I was out with a friend and someone came up to my friend and said, “Is your friend in the pantomime? I took my daughter to see it, and she wanted to be just like you.”

I had this realisation: just in these two shows, I’ve made almost 7,000 people smile, and more than half of them are kids. It blew me away completely to have that impact.

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After one of our Cinderella shows, a crew member came up to us and thanked the Hong Kong Players for their non-traditional casting. She’d brought her daughter, who’d looked up at the stage and was so excited when she saw someone who looked like her. Tears rolled down my face. I thought, “This is why we do it.”

It triggered me to do it more professionally. I’ve done more voice-over work and a lot of indie films, and been the lead in quite a lot of them. I’m forever indebted to the Hong Kong Players and the panto – they were my first stepping stone. I never expected to be paid for acting.

During 2015 I also had the realisation that when I’d go for auditions, I was always asked to bring a sari. I thought, “Why have I resigned myself to these little roles? I need to make myself visible rather than wait around for things.” Since 2015 my mentality has changed. I’m putting myself forward for roles that maybe on paper it might not seem I’m right for – I’m taking more chances.