Christmas Pantomimes

[Levin]

Christmas Pantomimes

But who is playing Jack?

[Kevin S]

Christmas Pantomimes

Ipswich turn the creepy, sinister dial up to 11:

[Big Boobs and FIRE!]

Christmas Pantomimes

A couple of years, sometime awayday accomplice Mad Dai, mentioned how he had once met Sugar Ray Leonard, to which there was a fairly subdued response.

Obviously disheartened by our lack of interest in his social prowess, at our next meet, Dai brought along a photo of him with the aforementioned. This time the photo gained a lot of attention. Not for the fact that it did indeed show Dai and Sugar Ray Leonard, but because Dai was dressed in a fairly outrageous womens outfit. Dai once again took umbrage, this time in our assumption that the garb was concurrent with one of his many sectionings.
Instead of this, Dai came out with the unexpected phrase “No, that was my second season in panto”.

It turned out that Dai had somehow got a part in a pantomime in Cardiff, playing some sort of fairy godmother. His first season went well, but his second season was more challenging as there was a long break between his first scene and his next scene. I don’t know exactly how long this was because Dai’s sole measurement of time is always cans of Strongbow consumed. The break could be anything up to six cans, which inhibited his latter scene as this involved getting kids from the audience up on stage. After a few complaints that the fairy godmother ‘stank like daddy does when he goes to football’, the curtain was drawn on his panto career.

However, this was not before one break, where Dai had noticed Sugar Ray Leonard was doing a book signing in town. So off went Dai, to get his book signed and a photo taken, without any consideration that he was dressed as a 18 stone fairy godmother.

This used to be Dai’s profile picture on my phone, but has now been replaced by one of him led in his nephews paddling pool, dressed only in shorts, eating a plate of meatballs, which I have as it is almost identical to Chief Wiggum in similar pose.

[hobbes]

Christmas Pantomimes

Ann fucking Widdecombe is in the Windsor panto this year.
Another reason to not go.

[diggedy derek]

Christmas Pantomimes

Stratford East has always been political and the panto there is always seen as a way of gettingleft politics across in a populist way

Sounds good to me!

[Various Artist]

Christmas Pantomimes

BB&F! strikes again. If there's one person you can rely on to bring comfort and joy this time of year, that's who.

[Squarewheelbike]

Christmas Pantomimes

Velvet Human wrote: Thank goodness And Nigel Havers is a great choice.

As a massive tedious pain in the arse?

[Southport Zeb]

Christmas Pantomimes

I think it's fair to say that Southport's pantomime isn't going to be the most cutting edge. We've got David Lonsdale (best known for playing a thick bloke in Heartbeat) as Widow Twankey, accompanied a couple of Coronation Street and Hollyoaks people. I was briefly interested when I saw that Laura Robson is playing Aladdin, but it turns out its not the tennis player trying something different - it's actually an actress from Middlesbrough.

[Crusoe]

Christmas Pantomimes

Ah, BB&F! eases the pain.

We're getting our own CBeebies export this year, plus someone from Eastenders and a guy I don't recognise.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Christmas Pantomimes

Squarewheelbike wrote:

Thank goodness And Nigel Havers is a great choice.

As a massive tedious pain in the arse?

It's only panto — it's not like you have to go out for beers with him.

[Crusoe]

Christmas Pantomimes

Oh yes he does.

[Guy Profumo]

Christmas Pantomimes

laverte wrote: Is nobody going to this?



I hope this is a glimpse of the future for Marine Le Pen.

I'd have a tough job casting a pantomime from members of this forum. The nativity play got easier this year, though.

Only because of the competition to be cast as one of the Magi though…

[Furtho]

Christmas Pantomimes

A colleague from Canada has it that panto is one of the last bastions of British culture in an increasingly homogenised world, etc.

[Levin]

Christmas Pantomimes

Seriously now. That's Peter Pan, Snow White (twice), Beauty and the Beast, and Jack and the Beanstalk which don't say who is playing the title roles. I understand why you'd put your celebrities front and centre but why not mention it at all?

I'm assuming that the CBBCs guy on the right is playing Aladdin.

[Levin]

Christmas Pantomimes

"Model, TV star, respected business woman and author, Katie Price will be bringing some glitz and glamour to Woking this Christmas, with stalwart of stage and screen Anita Dobson casting her legendary charm! They will be joined by CBeebies favourite Ben Faulks aka Mr Bloom as our green fingered Prince Charming and South African funny man Alan Committie as Chester the Jester."

What that opening paragraph doesn't mention is that Dobson and Price are both playing the Wicked Queen, some dates Price others Dobson.

[Various Artist]

Christmas Pantomimes

Levin wrote: What that opening paragraph doesn't mention is that Dobson and Price are both playing the Wicked Queen, some dates Price others Dobson.

That was also mentioned by laverte at the bottom of page 1, in the context of describing how marvellous a person Anita Dobson is. It is a bit of a nasty sneaky misdirection to imply they're both in it at once. What I don't get is why they feel the need to lay it on so thick regarding Ms Price's credentials – surely "TV star" (and, OK, "model") is the only germane bit, I'm fairly certain no-one's going to the panto because they want to watch a "respected business woman" as the Wicked Queen.

Levin wrote: Seriously now. That's Peter Pan, Snow White (twice), Beauty and the Beast, and Jack and the Beanstalk which don't say who is playing the title roles. I understand why you'd put your celebrities front and centre but why not mention it at all?

I suppose the title roles tend to be young, fresh-faced and – let's face it – fairly anodyne characters. Since all the more interesting and fun parts go to the celebrities, they're always likely to elbow the nominal central figure right off the poster given that it's probably assumed they're all we care about.
Crusoe's description above actually sums up the casting formula pretty much to a tee:

We're getting our own CBeebies export this year, plus someone from Eastenders and a guy I don't recognise.

Substitute "CBeebies export" with "local radio 'personality' looking sinister in drag" where necessary.

[Kevin S]

Christmas Pantomimes

Levin wrote: "They will be joined by CBeebies favourite Ben Faulks aka Mr Bloom as our green fingered Prince Charming"

Mr Bloom, now I've been waiting for an excuse to mention him on OTF.

Basic premise: he owns an allotment which has sentient, talking vegetables in it (quite what a vegetarian household would make of this premise is a matter for debate, of course). Children come and learn about growing and eating vegetables.

For some reason the producers decided that Mr Bloom should be a northerner. But they cast this guy, Ben Faulks, who comes from Somerset.

The first word you'll hear him say is "Ellooh" in a terrible accent (should have been 'ey up, anyway), and then just wait for the fourth line where he lets a huge "rarther" get in there. Very odd.

https://[video=youtube_share;-oqtCUF...?v=-oqtCUFhGOE[/video]

[Kevin S]

Christmas Pantomimes

All of which got me wondering, if that's Mr Bloom, Nina and I Can Cook all ticked off - which theatre has got the most impressive CBeebies name of them all?

No, I don't mean Justin Fletcher. I mean Chris Jarvis, of course.

And the answer is Richmond for their Cinderella. And he's not even given top billing!

[Kevin S]

Christmas Pantomimes

But, in case you're wondering, Fletcher is doing Dick Whittington at the Hexagon, Reading.

[Kevin S]

Christmas Pantomimes

Pui Fan Lee appears not to have a booking, though - which is a big opportunity missed, I'd say.

[Kevin S]

Christmas Pantomimes

I seem to have found a whole page of listings and posters:
http://www.its-behind-you.com/diary.html

I was looking to see whether Phil "Mister Maker" Gallagher is in one - and he is, Snow White at the Marlowe theatre with Roxy from EastEnders.

[Kevin S]

Christmas Pantomimes

OH MY GOD LOOK WHAT GLASGOW WANTS TO UNLEASH ON THE WORLD

[laverte]

Christmas Pantomimes

I bet the Krankies are great in pantomime. But sod the SECC, that'll be like watching Macbeth in a car park. The Kings Theatre has long been Glasgow's best venue for panto: it's got Rab C Nesbitt this year, as well as the lassie from Balamory who is always in Scottish panto, and it's bound to have a high quota of self-deprecating Scottish football jokes.

Mr Tumble and Anita Dobson are friends, and quite possibly know each other through panto. Anita is in the three episodes of Gigglebiz I've been forced to watch a hundred times each. Is it me, or does Mr Tumble look a bit like Grant Shapps?

Pantomime scripts are tailored to the celebrity star (which means the show has to be completely rewritten when the star falls ill or pulls out), so I'd imagine Woking is putting on two very different shows this year. You can't have Katie Price referring to her "den of iniquity – my dirty den", or Anita Dobson making innuendoes about boobs. The producers must have calculated that they'll draw enough interest with the two star names to offset the extra costs of having two scripts, mid-season rehearsals, etc. But I agree, the marketing is a bit cheeky.

[Ray de Galles]

Christmas Pantomimes

Bored of Education wrote: Has Harry never put up his "panto stars" thread on here?

OH NO, I HAVEN'T!

Sorry, I mean "No, I haven't". Evilc seems to be the man for it on here usually.

[Various Artist]

Christmas Pantomimes

Kevchenko wrote: I seem to have found a whole page of listings and posters:
http://www.its-behind-you.com/diary.html

That's genuinely enlightening – I'd not considered or suspected before that almost all the big venues around the country basically 'franchise' what are presumably variants on the same script, given they clearly share an author and the promotional stuff is evidently identical:
Edinburgh's King's Theatre has an Andy Gray in Snow White, though regrettably not Richard Keyes.