Panto fans from across the land and across the continents celebrated Panto Day on Wednesday 5th December.
Panto Day’s Facebook page positively bulged with posts, messages and over 200 pantomime posters and behind the scenes photographs. Activity was non–stop: The Palace Theatre, Kilmarnock shot their own mini-Panto Day documentary, panto producers Paul Holman Associates celebrated with a tribute inspired by Depeche Mode’s "I Just Can’t Enough Enough" and Tivoli Theatre, Wimborne’s Ugly Sisters video-blogged their panto–themed rendition of "12 Days of Christmas".
In all, over 150 theatres participated in the event which saw six performers live tweet their every move to provide a unique look at ‘A Day in the Life of Pantoland’, and on the web site the Panto Advice Page was launched with contributions from Dames, comics, writers and directors. Visit : www.pantoadvicepage.blogspot.co.uk for the Advice Page and celebratepanto.co.uk, facebook.com/pantoday2012 to see the other pantotastic fun that everyone got up to.
On television, This Morning featured Christopher Biggins currently playing at Theatre Royal, Plymouth, and the One Show hosted John Barrowman and Priscilla Presley to talk about their pantomimes Jack and the Beanstalk in Glasgow and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Wimbledon; late in the evening as Cinderellas start looking nervously at their watches, Panto Day enjoyed an unexpected mention from Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight!
Throughout the day, BBC Local Radio Stations in Newcastle, London, Suffolk and Nottingham all had panto guests.
On the Tweetosphere '#panto' tweeting reached over 1.2 million people which, when combined with '#pantoday' tweets, had a global Twitter Panto Day audience of 1,579,267 users.
Truly this was panto love.
Post script: there was a different kind of panto love at The Marlowe Theatre this week when Lloyd Hollett playing Jangles in Sleeping Beauty proposed to his girlfriend on stage at the end of a performance. Dannii Williams, who works in the theatre's wardrobe department, said yes.