The snobs are wrong - why I go to pantos every year

I recently turned 30. I had a big party, finally faced up to the fact my Forbes 30 Under 30 dream was over, and I even found my first grey hair – all very expected. Something unexpected, perhaps, is that my next big calendar highlight is the Christmas panto.

Every year, on the Sunday before Christmas, my family and I (all of us now adults) dust off our best ‘fits and head to the Manchester Opera House for an evening of raucous laughter. It is truly the highlight of my Christmas – more than festive shenanigans with friends, more than Christmas Day itself.

I’m aware of the snobbishness around panto, of course: the belief that it’s inferior “low culture”, that it’s just a bunch of Z-listers humiliating themselves because they probably can’t get any other work. And OK, often (not always) the cast are a bunch of Z-listers, but you’re missing the point if you don’t realise they’re in on the joke. Anne “The Governess” from The Chase is under no illusion she’s going to win an Olivier award playing Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother in Scarborough – but that doesn’t mean she can’t make you feel something. 

Maybe you’re turning your nose up at this very moment. But I’m here to explain that it is, in fact, more than worthy of your time and respect. Look, I appreciate culture in all its art forms: I went to art school, I go to exhibitions, my theatre favourites range from Ola Ince’s Is God Is to the 1966 musical Cabaret. I reckon I know good entertainment when I see it – and panto is the real deal.

Why is it (or how the hell can it be) so good, then? Sure, the pure family tradition of it all is part of it. There’s a ceremony to it all. It’s the one date of the season (bar Christmas Day) my family all actually commit to – even the ever-disappearing brothers who seem to have a limitless amount of friends and plans with said friends. These days, I even have a personal rule of no partying the night before (and I love to party) because I want to enjoy the show in its full glory.

The main point I want to get at, though, is that the actual performance itself is good. It’s entertaining, it’s enjoyable – it’s a hoot! My family and I cackle with laughter – something all too uncommon in a time where the most revered, must-watch comedies are more wry and self-consciously clever than laugh-out-loud funny.

There’s something utterly refreshing about experiencing something so stripped back, silly and joyful. The joining-in element is thrilling, too – there are no Wicked rules here. There is, however, a certain freeing-pleasure in shouting, “He’s behind you!” louder than all the kids around you. (Admittedly, it can be embarrassing walking into the venue with no children in tow – but you’re fine by the second drink.)

As for content, the plot is by the by: welcome to a whole new world of tactics keeping you engaged. There are the tongue twister monologues that are almost impossible to get right – and routinely go wrong. There’s the unrelenting, old-school physical comedy – every year, there’s an almost identical slapstick routine at the panto I go to, where music speeds up and the cast end up accidentally hitting each other with frying pans and other household items.

Sure, it’s stupid and cheesy and silly. But so is some of the greatest comedy out there, whether that’s Step Brothers or Dad’s Army. Even my mum, who generally hates “silly humour” and films like Anchorman, enjoys our panto year in, year out.

There’s also a certain cosy thrill in returning to the same panto company, like we do – the repetition of joke formats, even specific jokes, with some of the same cast, only gets funnier. And you can always rely on the celeb star forgetting their lines, at some or various points, for a giggle. Pantos tend to weave in jokes about the city they’re in, too, which is great for a few local lols. “My” production feels heartwarmingly Manc – a comforting and refreshing twist for someone who spends most of their life surrounded by southerners in London. I’m sure, like all art forms, there is bad panto – but I’m yet to experience it.

I wasn’t always such a fanatic. It all started with being dragged to various different pantos in early adolescence, when me and my younger brothers were between the ages of nine and 13 – we never cared much for it, and soon got too teen for it altogether.

We bopped around a bit for a replacement festive outing, but everything ended in disappointment: We lost faith in the cinema trips after being forced to see Tron, Beowulf (my step dad’s choices) and the bloodbath that was The Nativity Story in consecutive years (my mum did not realise this was a biblical reenactment, including a graphic stoning of poor Mary). We tried “proper” theatre, too, with White Christmas at the Lowry, but the boys just fell asleep. We went to great lengths to make something else stick and nothing did – until we came full circle back to panto when I was in my mid-twenties and my brothers and I had long left home.

We rocked up to the Manchester Opera House in 2019 to see Snow White, starring Strictly’s Craig Revel Horwood as the Wicked Stepmother, with low expectations. But we had so much fun we’ve been back almost every year since – only the pandemic ruined our streak.

This year will be the third year in a row we’ll see comedian Jason Manford take the leading role, and we’ve grown fond of scene-stealing cast staple Ben Nickless, who’s starred as the funny sidekick-slash-narrator for the past six years.

Sure, alcohol might have a role to play and, admittedly, I’ve never tried this sober, but it even managed to win over my highly sceptical boyfriend when we popped his panto cherry at 30, in 2022. He comes from more of a “proper theatre” family, and to say he did not have high hopes would be an understatement. But even he couldn’t suppress the belly laughs.

He now appreciates that, much like TV shows Spongebob Squarepants and The Simpsons, it might outwardly cater to kids but, really, it’s full of risqué, sometimes downright outrageous humour for the adults. The shock value of hearing very un-PG jokes in a room full of children (who understand nothing, the fools) can make you double over.

And if the main thing that puts you off panto is being surrounded by kids, then just look to the rise of adult-only pantos. I went to my first with friends last year – Sleeping Beauty Takes A Prick! at London’s Charing Cross Theatre, by the He’s Behind You theatre company, set in the kingdom of Slutvia where a prince searches for the boy of his dreams – and I shed actual tears. This year, they’re are putting on Jack and The Beanstalk where Jack is “very poor, very gay and very horny, living with his mum on a dilapidated dairy farm 10 miles from the nearest Grindr user”. It’s effectively panto on crack – or poppers, I should say.

There’s no better time to get into panto than when you’re all grown-up. This year, we even have a waitlist for tickets in my household – one of my 27-year-old brother’s mates is apparently “desperate” to go – so it seems my family is doing well at spreading the good word far and wide. We aren’t religious folk, and we’ve never even considered the whole Christmas mass thing, but I guess, to us, panto is our religion – have mercy on our souls.