Do you think panto season is behind you? Oh no, it’s not – some aren’t open yet stage

TThe Christmas decorations have been put down, the kids are back in school and New Year’s resolutions have already been forgotten. It’s mid-January, and the festive season is well and truly over – but not in the land of panto. Pantomimes are still performed in Liverpool, at the city’s Royal Court and Everyman theatres, and at the Theater Clwyd in Mold, among other places. But will panto look different once the Christmas holidays are over and could it serve another purpose amid the January gloom?

Sleeping Beauty runs at Nottingham Playhouse until the end of this week, closing just before Blue Monday, supposedly the most depressing day of the year. John Elkington plays the governess Nelly in the show, and she has been Lady Nottingham for nearly 30 years. For fans coming into January, perhaps stuck at home, “it’s something to look forward to” and another post-Christmas treat, he says. “It feels like an extension for the kids, while keeping it fun: you know, ‘There’s still panto to go to!'” Our audiences are so loyal and supportive. “Just because we’ve come into the new year and we’re doing fewer shows – six a week instead of 12 weeks like we do before Christmas – our job is to conserve the energy, not lose it.” It’s a hard gig, as Elkington can only get up on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

About 40,000 people visit the Nottingham Playhouse panto every year. Elkington says the crowds are “bigger and livelier” in the run-up to Christmas, and that they taper off after that. There are also more relaxed and accessible shows in January, designed for a smaller audience and adapted to be quieter. Throughout the run, Elkington approaches each show as if his entire family is in the front row.

The raucous last night of Nottingham Panto, when the crew played tricks on the actors, has gained such a reputation that audiences who have already seen the show are coming back. “They saw it as it should be, and then they showed up that night too — anything could happen,” Elkington says, recalling the year when 15 crew members and three of the band were on stage and “a massive pillow fight broke out.” Nottingham Playhouse is one of the few theaters to put the panto online – Sleeping Beauty, written and directed by Playhouse head Adam Penford, is available on demand until Saturday evening, when the final screening takes place.

At Liverpool’s Royal Court, The Scouse Christmas Carol was originally scheduled to close this weekend, but it has been so popular that it will now run until 24 January. Not only is it one of the last Christmas pantos in the country to close but it was also one of the first to open on 7 November.

“For most people, panto is about getting ready for Christmas,” says the theatre’s executive producer, Kevin Fearon, who is also the writer of the Mark Chatterton-directed production. Fearon says many of those who booked for January are coming because they couldn’t secure seats for December. Audience demand is particularly high for booth tickets where you can serve a meal to your table before the show. This dining option is a popular feature of the Royal Court all year round. “People want to go out with their families and have a party and have a meal.”

The panto is “our perfect show of the year,” he says, because it captures the essence of the Royal Court: “Great entertainment with a great atmosphere in the room – 100% of everything.” In the cold of January, when the days are short and people are returning to work, it’s an opportunity for a big night out to lift your spirits. The cost of living has led some theatergoers to reduce their trips to the Royal Court throughout the year, but people remain committed to panto, Fearon says. Audiences often gather in recent weeks as word of mouth spreads. “We will generate around £1.4 million from ticket sales plus food and drink. This represents more than half of our ticket sales for the year – and it funds the rest of the year.” Within weeks of the panto closing, the team will have chosen the title of the next show and begun work on it. “People decide to bring more friends and family every year. We need to continue to live up to previous years. There are expectations.”

Like the Nottingham Playhouse panto, any references to Christmas are usually edited out or removed for subsequent showings of the Royal Court panto but this was not an option with their mischievous rendition of A Christmas Carol. “It’s the first time we haven’t changed the last song of the show,” Fearon says. In Nottingham, the panto usually ends with a Christmas tune – during January it is replaced by a repeat of another number in the parade.

But some pantos aren’t designed for Christmas at all. East London’s Brick Lane Music Hall opens Jack and His Giant Stalk on January 22nd and runs until March 7th. Described as an ‘adult pantomime’, not as crude as the increasingly popular adult panto shows, it is written and directed by Lucy Hayes. It’s the second panto I’ve made for the place after, ahem, Pinocchio and his wooden Whopper.

“We do a Christmas variety show with carols and all the jazz,” she says. “They used to do it for two weeks and then panto for two weeks. But Christmas is the most popular time of year, so they would start the Christmas show a week before, in November, and extend the panto for a week into January, and they would sell and sell. At least 10 years ago, they thought: What if we did the Christmas show before Christmas and then the panto after?”

It has become, Hayes says, “a tradition of its own.” For many people, panto means anticipating the holidays. What does the pantomime offer from January to March? “Christmas is a very busy time, with seeing family and so on, people may have more time after that,” she says, and they may “need a little more cheer, and take the blues away.” Their panto is “so much fun, silly and festive – we do our best at it”. Like the Royal Court, the venue serves food before the show – either afternoon tea or a meal in the evening – and many of the audiences in the 180-seat hall have their own traditions when they come during the run.

Brick Lane Music Hall was founded in 1992 by her father, entertainer Vincent Hayes, who she now directs the show. She recalls the joy of panto from her childhood: “I thought it was very exciting to go on stage as an audience member. It fascinated me. I was always the brat with the hand up, desperate to keep going… I felt it was for me because I was invited to be in it, which was different from a West End or a play.”

There are companies that perform pantomimes at other times of the year, especially at Easter and the half-term holidays. Even the scary ones are worn on Halloween. But Brick Lane Music Hall has the distinction of opening pantos right after most have just closed. “People are often surprised, but they’re intrigued when you explain it to them — it’s a fun idea,” says Hayes. This also means, of course, less competition for an audience than you might find during a panto-filled December. “We created our own market,” she says with a laugh.