It’s Panto time again … Oh! yes it is!

This year I have been to a pantomime for the first time in about 25 years. We bought tickets last year but Covid meant that we didn’t get to use them. This year’s offering was Robin Hood and the Babes in the Wood by the Littleport Players. Not one of the more common productions – and not one I’ve come across in Salonika – but I do recall going to see it with my grandfather when I was a nipper. For many years he and I went to East Barnet Royal British Legion Hall to see the show put on by – I think – the Warren Players and Concert Party. You don’t hear of concert parties these days, so that makes me feel very old.

As a member of 28th Division – the Cyclist Company – it is inconceivable that Grandad Fred didn’t get to see at least the first of the 85th Field Ambulance pantomimes, Dick Whittington. Sadly, if he did, he never thought to mention it and I never thought to ask – but then I didn’t have a clue about Salonika back then.

I’m lucky enough to have a copy of the privately printed script of the show. It’s a handsome little volume which was sent as a present for ‘Bessie & Nanna’ by Ernie Dickens of 3rd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery. I reproduce here two of the more colourful pictures from it.

The frontispiece of the book gives a rather more glamorous impression of the pantomime – put together in just a fortnight – than the reality of its first performance on Christmas night, 1915 in a collection of marquees. But bringing an undoubted touch of glamour to the proceedings was Corporal Edward J. Dillon as Alice Fitzwarren, wearing a wig made by Pte W. Anderson!

If you want to know more about pantomimes, I suggest you search this website for previous offerings which include real music from over one hundred years ago. You’ll love it … Oh! yes you will!