Panto Chorus Boys Stories

Sometimes it’s the unknowns in a panto cast who provide some the best off-stage entertainment, and that often means the chorus boys.

I shall never forget the sight of one (the rear end of Daisy the Cow in Jack and the Beanstalk) pinning another (the front end) against the wall and describing in loving and lurid detail exactly what slow and painful death awaited him if he had another curry for the rest of the run!

And in one panto there was Tony. He was the only chorus boy in the show (and there were six of them, which shows how long ago this happened; nowadays two are more common) who wasn’t gay. I asked him if he didn’t feel a little… well, isolated?

“What?” he said. “Six girls and me? I’ll take that kind of isolation any day.”

He tried to bet me that he would have slept with all the chorus girls by the end of the run. I refused the bet and, at the end, he told me I was wise not take it because I would have lost. Not sure that I believed him, to be honest. He probably tried…

Then, that same year, there was the chorus boy who fancied me.

(I was in my 30s then—I wasn't always this haggard, worn-out, fat old bugger, you know!)

I found out because he said to me after one show, "I suppose you're going home to your wife, Peter?"

"Yes," I said—for I was.

"Oooo!" he said, tossing his head, and stormed off, hips a-sway and lips a-pout!