Imagine Theatre’s Jamie Leadbeatter wraps up panto season for Ensemble!

As the curtain comes down on another panto season, it’s safe to say the 2025/2026 season has been a huge success – and one we can all be incredibly proud of at Imagine Theatre.

This year, we produced 21 Christmas shows and pantomimes across the country, bringing laughter, sparkle and plenty of panto magic to theatres nationwide. From auditions and rehearsals to final curtain calls, the scale of this season has been impressive and reflects the energy, teamwork and commitment shown by everyone involved.

Across the season, nearly 600,000 people came to see one of our pantomimes. Families, schools and audiences of all ages joined us to boo the baddie, cheer the hero and enjoy the shared experience that pantomime does best. Reaching so many people is a fantastic achievement and a real highlight of the year.

A huge thank you must also go to all of our Trafalgar Entertainment colleagues who played such a vital role in making this our most successful pantomime season yet. From venue management and marketing teams to Front of House, Box Office and technical departments, your collaboration, expertise and hard work helped deliver an exceptional experience for audiences across the country.

Now, as the shows wrap up, the buzz certainly hasn’t stopped. Our warehouse is alive with activity as sets return home to be carefully stored, costumes come back to be cleaned, repaired and readied for future seasons, and the behind-the-scenes work continues at pace.

It’s a visible reminder that panto might pause on stage, but the work behind it never really stops. And there’s certainly no rest for Imagine. Planning for the 2026/2027 pantomime season is already well underway, with all our shows on sale, photoshoots being planned and preparations in full swing for the year ahead. Keep your eyes peeled too for an exciting rebrand of our show artwork, coming soon.

Thank you to everyone who helped make the 2025/2026 season such a standout success – and in true pantomime style, we’ll have to do it again then, wont we?

Let’s look at Imagine Theatre’s 2025/26 key stats in full!