As Christmas tree lights go out all over the nation and panto paraphernalia is tenderly packed away for another year, it is interesting to note that Aladdin has been both the professional and amateur sector's most popular pantomime this festive season.
As part of 2014's Panto Day initiatives, the first ever National Amateur Panto Survey took place in the autumn in collaboration with the National Operatic and Dramatic Association (NODA).
After Aladdin, NODA members placed Sleeping Beauty in second place with Cinderella and Dick Whittington in joint third and Jack and the Beanstalk and Robin Hood and the Babes in the Wood after them.
Parallel statistics from the National Database of Pantomime Performance showed that Aladdin, which had 46 productions, knocked Jack off his Beanstalk—taking him down from first place in 2013 to the third–most produced professional pantomime.
Also in the professional top five were Cinderella at second with 39 productions, Snow White with 30 and Sleeping Beauty with 24 productions.
Also of interest is that only 10% of professional productions cast an actress in the role Principal Boy with a—by comparison—huge 65% of amateur dramatic societies casting a female Principal Boy.
Is this due to a change of audience tastes or a reluctance on the part of female television stars to take on male persona and never get to wear one of those fabulous frocks? Or is it a symptom of the female–male membership ratios in the amateur sector? Answers on a recycled Christmas card.
What we can be certain of is that with the National Database of Pantomime Performance listing in excess of 190 professional productions for the now closing season and 175 amateur dramatic organisations participating in the National Amateur Panto Survey, the nation's appetite for panto appears undiminished.