Our venue teams are gearing up for another busy panto season with press launches happening around the UK.

DARTFORD

VME Kay Hadley – On 16 September, Orchard West held their panto press launch for Aladdin, starring Linda Robson. The entire cast attended in full colourful costumes for photo ops around the venue and town. BBC South East were in attendance and aired an interview with Linda in that evening’s local TV news. Local press, radio and influencers also came along, capturing lots of great content with the cast. And Kady from content made her directional debut, taking Aladdin into a local carpet shop to find his “magic carpet” and the dame went with her to Superdrug to do a make-up supermarket sweep. Look out for lots of fun reels and posts on the Orchard socials soon!

Pantomime cast included: Birds of a Feather icon and Loose Women legend Linda Robson. Hilarious comedian Rikki Jay, panto regular Jason-Marc-Williams as your Dame, Widow Panky, Britain’s Got Talent and America’s Got Talent’s magical Mandy Muden as Spirit of the Ring, West End stars Cleve September as Aladdin and Anton Stephans as Genie of the Lamp, with Ruby Mann as Princess Jasmine and seasoned panto performer and actor Richard Foster-King as the Wicked Sorcerer.

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CARDIFF

VME Stuart Penney – Following the success of last year’s launch, we decided to host the event at New Theatre Cardiff again and liaised with Crossroads and central programming to secure a date. Unfortunately, due to personal circumstances, our top billing cast member, Gethin Jones, was unable to attend so we had to rearrange the days activities around that at short notice.

The day started with a press carousel, with cast members moving between booths to be interviewed by different publications, followed by content capture around the venue, and then a photo shoot with a professional photographer on our stage with the cast in costume.

We also took our Princess, Emma Kirk, up the road to the iconic Cardiff Castle to do a photoshoot in one of the beautiful rooms there. It was a great day and the fun cast, of which most are returning from last year, already knew us and they were a pleasure to work with again.

Returning to the stage for a spellbinding adventure are presenter Gethin Jones as Prince Gethin, beloved broadcaster Owain Wyn Evans as the Spirit of Pantomime, and Cardiff’s best-loved panto dame Mike Doyle as Nurse Nellie. They will be joined by returning stars Jack Ryan and Jalisa Phoenix-Roberts as Muddles and Carabosse, and Welsh musical theatre star Emma Kirk as Princess Aurora. 

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SOUTHEND

VME Sophie Holland (pictured with Rylan and Ross!) – On 27 August, Southend Cliffs Pavilion held its panto launch at Central Hall Westminster, London, attended by our star cast, Rylan Clark, Ross King, Oonagh Cox, Nic Greenshields and Ewan Goddard.

Luckily for us, TV star Ross King announced his panto casting live on ITV’s Lorraine show the following morning by bringing Rylan into the studio! A great little bit of publicity for the Southend pantomime. It was a very successful day considering we were out on location, and we were delighted with the coverage.

You shall go to the ball this Christmas as Cinderella comes to the Cliffs Pavilion with award-winning television presenter, radio DJ, podcaster and number one best-selling author Rylan, who returns for another year to play the Fairy Godfather, and broadcaster, film, theatre and strictly star Ross King as Buttons. You can also catch Ross lighting up the dancefloor every Saturday night in the new series of Strictly Come Dancing on BBC1.