Which Pantomimes Are You Seeing This Year?

I met Richard after the panto and he was a top guy, he chatted briefly about Sooty and knowing Matthew Corbett who was my Sooty era presenter. He owns the Sooty rights so obviously puts in great effort with his own shows.

Can I throw out a question (not being a regular pantomime goer, although I did get to the Palladium I'm tempted to go to one of the big pantomimes this year).

When I was growing up, I always thought that pantomimes were mostly local productions (and the nearest we got to star casting was Jet from Gladiators).

Now they're big productions, with name celebrities and with (it seems) a few major operations dominating.

For a company like QDOS, which is running around 30 pantomimes this year, with mostly the big name pantos like Cinderella, will all of their productions of any particular pantomime use the same book, similar staging etc? Or is this all very bespoke by venue? I know they do change things based on the star casting, but are there just slots which they leave open for the stars to do their thing?

A side question. I see that Southampton, for example, is running what's listed as "Dick Whittington - The London Palladium Production". How does that work, in that my experience of the Palladium was that 90% of it was scripted around the stars and their variety acts? The cast here is completely different, so how much of the Palladium production would actually survive?

It must be at least 10 years since I last saw a panto and I tried but failed to see the past two Palladium ones, so I decided to bite the bullet and go for a nice mid-stalls ticket for Snow White. Can't wait!

Went to see the final Berwick Kaler panto last night in York - a fitting send-off to his 40 years as Dame, with a “storyline” about his inability to complete a script on time and the cast trying to work out what the story is. Great fun! Will certainly miss Berwick and his company of actors next year.

An added bonus was being sat next to the legends Imelda Staunton and Jim Carter for the show - just about managed to resist embarrassing myself in front of them...

Not exactly a Panto but went to Christmas Spectacular at B'ham Symphony Hall with London Concert Orchestra, Capital Voices with guest vocalists Kerry Ellis, Tim Howar, Kimberley Wyatt and Laura Pitt-Pulford. A very good concert but maybe a 2-2 female-male vocalist split would have been better as Tim seemed to carry a load and Laura only did 3 numbers.

If anyone knows B'ham Symphony Hall there is a big walkway through and after the show I went to the internal stage door as I thought Tim might pop out or possibly Kerry and I'd noticed the steward on there was a chap I've spoken to many times and he'd said he was going travelling across Asia for a couple of months and this was first time I'd seen him since he was back. He said the artists were on a coach so would likely go straight out the back but as I was chatting to him I saw some lads laughing and whistling at a nearby window. A downstairs room next to SD was being used as a costume store and the blinds weren't closed the dancers were handing their costumes back to wardrobe person. But one gorgeous dancer stripped off her costume in the room and did a most elegant ballet lean forward naked but for a tiny thong. No-one inside the room had rumbled what had happened and said lads moved on.

The steward said he'd remind companies to close the blinds in future as there have been jokes about people looking up and seeing stars in the main dressing rooms which look out onto the concourse a level or so up forgetting to close the blinds. Anyway as I was finishing chatting to the steward said daring dancer walks out of stage door clothed asking which way to coach, we both kept a straight face and thought it best not to mention it to her as she might have been upset and embarrassed having provided a peep show.

I certainly don't want a panto to run 3 hours - far too long. However, I did feel that the running time of Act One 55 mins and Act Two 55 mins with a 20 minute interval giving a running time of just 2 hours 10 minutes was a bit thin!

pretty far in advance, although the titles sometimes change if casting proves an issue (or opportunity). And all qdos venues have announced for next year, or the vast majority at least. They generally announce around the time the current years panto is about to open

The shows effectively run on a roster by the main Producers and if they have two venues fairly close together - take my two local QDOS panto venues - Birmingham Hippodrome and Wolves Grand then they will look to keep their shows different for a few years as they go through the usual suspects.

It can also depend no doubt on if there is a mainstay returning each year in the cast say Billy Pearce - Bradford, Clive and Danny - Newcastle etc. Then they may look outside the main shows to give the talent something different to do on occasion.

Also competing producers may look to vary if one gets in early and say announces Cinders for next year another who might have been planning Cinders might do Snow White or Dick Whittington instead now.

Plus some stars do certain Pantos and might have agreed a year or so ahead where they will be especially if they have gone further afield one year. Lets say a star agrees to go down to Plymouth - good theatre but maybe a fair trek for a London based performer but in return they get Bromley, Woking or say Milton Keynes the next year so they can get home each night.

I guess some like to travel others don't, some may like a coastal town or could have family living nearby so the attraction of being near London may be lesser for some.

we're booked in to see Berwick Kalers usual nonsense pantomime the 2nd Jan, we put our names in for the final night ballot but missed out this year managed it the last 3yrs. In our house we are having bets on who's going to take over next year. I think it could be the villain David Leonard.

This part has intrigued me since they announced it. It isn't just a different cast, it is a vastly different cast, Phil Mitchell Playing the same part as Eva Peron!

After a bit of a binge on the big pantos in London, my local theatre's Dick Whittington was a delight, Chris Jarvis (a wonderful CeBeebies presenter) really knows who whip a panto crowd into a frenzy!