LEFT - JOSEPH LYCETT-BARNES (AS PRINCE CHARMING) / MIDDLE - ELLEN BUTLER (AS THE COUNTESS) / RIGHT - GRANT CARTWRIGHT (AS CINDERS) / BOTTOM - LUCAS MEREDITH (AS BUTTONS) IN ABOVE THE STAG THEATRE'S TINDERELLA - CINDERS SLIPS IT IN
Pantomime is big. Surprisingly big for a theatrical form that is barely known outside of Britain. The British Empire might have left a proud legacy of railways and homophobia across the globe but apart from a smattering of off erings in Canada, Australia and Jamaica, it’s only in the UK and Ireland that Christmas explodes with theatre’s most colourful, widelyappealing and interactive genre. You won’t hear “he’s behind you” in Swahili. Over the last festive season in the UK, 8,108,108 tickets were available for 10,731 performances of 273 different pantos. Had all those tickets been sold the collective box off ce would have been £145,988,307.
Panto for many children is their first experience of theatre. With its promise of songs and jokes, and familiar faces, customs and stories, it off ers a guarantee other shows can’t.