Boggen's Advent Calender (Day Twenty) - Goosing with Dick while Aladdin watches

Its Panto Time once again and for the twentieth day, here are some awkward Pantomime television ads to look at..

First off upto to Scotland to see how they can advertise a panto with mainly Scottish flavour, pantos do have a strong regional flavour in certain parts of the country and they draw on this to enhance what they have got already. However this just seems like the raw footage for a commercial which has somehow sneaked it way onto the internet, letting light behind the magic somewhat.

"No, the camera's over here..."

And over to Southampton as this is this year's advertisement for the production of Cinderella starring Brian Conley and Gok Wan, yes that Gok Wan is in panto. Conley, a veteran so many of these shows, makes it look so effortless. But hey, in a world where local advertising is so short nowadays, isn't reassuring that a show like this is going all out make itself noticed.

No puppets were harmed in the making of this advert

Or how about another way to get you message across, mainly shouting it out there! In Weymouth that's the way they like it seems, making sure everyone notices them. The simple pleasure of seeing the panto comes to us all, in my time I have seen everyone from Lorraine Chase, Cardew Robinson to the great Brian Cant, even appearing on stage with him. Overall panto has kept up with the times, with whoever is famous is cast in these shows, from the rash of soap stars in the late 80's through to reality stars of today. Its these people who make panto what it is and we wouldn't have it any other way.

Giant, doesn't cover it...

Boggen's Advent Calender (Day Two) - Oh no... It Shouldn't Have...

Christmas usually contains so many things, but the ever present has to be pantomime and over the years television has managed to tell these tales in so many different ways. Whether for children or all the family, it was pretty much what you could see in any theater over the festive season.

But good old television loves to do something special and it turns out the idea to such a length meaning the tights and dresses are donned by people usually to be found delivering us serious news all through the year. With one whiff of a mince pie and they are turned into hoofers who can hold their own with any of showbiz's royalty. Which leads us to Westward Television in 1981, on the 31st of December the company itself would disappear from screens but were they to leave a mark before they did. A whole twenty five minutes from the South West's finest lead to well know tales to be mixed upto into one panto, meaning Scrooge (played by Stuart Hutchison) met with Tweedledum and Tweedledee (both played by Peter Forde and Chris Fear respectively). 

Though if its the South West, then Judy Spiers is never that far behind at all. With Ms Spiers playing a Rag Doll, it seems Roger Shaw played to type though, the Chief Station announcer played a station announcer. Hopefully, he was dressed in a railway workers uniform, to least add that more surrealism. Not bad for a Christmas Eve at all, I think.

Hold on though, if Westward was offering their take on panto. then how about a review of the year via the medium of pantomime? Well, the Nationwide team thought this was worthy of an edition on the 19th of December 1977. So Sue Lawley dressed as Dorothy to take the Yellow Brick Road with help from Bob Wellings and Denis Healey. Yes, the Chancellor of the Exchequer appeared as the Wizard of Oz, though this became a regular thing for a couple of years but of course when David Dimbleby arrived all that type of stuff stopped. Quite right too, Mr Dimbleby as the Genie of the Lamp? No, I can't picture it either. 

Local news always loves a bit of thigh slapping action and as far as these two things combined, that Fern Britton was part of the cast during a 1988 performance of Cinderella at the Mayflower Theater taking the title role allowing her to read the news on TVS' Coast to Coast and then do a performance of the panto in the evening. Thus with that, the whole thing was turned into a story for the programme, though with Fern's theatrical background she could take to it like it was her day job. 

So just when you think its safe to switch on your television at Christmas, there might be a panto lurking there and feel safe that the One Show hasn't thought of that idea as of yet...