I guess a 4 line nursery rhyme gives plenty of scope

It was the last night of York Panto on Saturday. This year, it was Humpty Dumpty. Not that it mattered, as there was no discernable plot. We had Snow White in there, complete with 7 penguins rather than dwarves (Snow, geddit?), Old King Cole, and Young King Cole, who was, of course, called ‘Nat’, and Simple Simon, and a baddie called Eggula. And of course, Humpty himself, who emerged from the egg.

We had the usual company of actors, Berwick (31 years and counting*), David (yes, still got it), Martin, Suzy, Vince. A few new recruits too among the dancers, including David’s 19 year old daughter. As I remember her running round as a toddler on last night, I felt old. There was possibly the campest panto chorus I’ve ever seen. (All dressed as Superheroes, below, for no particular reason)
This year, I didn’t get to see it before last night, so it was all new to me – though many of the jokes, and the slosh scene, were distinctly recycled. But that’s the joy of it, and that’s why we come back year after year. When it got to the songsheet, it’s usually ‘girls and boys’ against ‘mums and dads’.

Berwick looked out at the audience. ‘All those under 18 raise your hands’. Two hands went up. ‘Hmm, I think you’re going to stuggle’. Of course it was a draw, as it always is.

As always, we had our script as the audience, and were pretty much on cue. There’s definitely a Eurovision fan in there somewhere, as I suddenly realised that the main love song was in fact this year’s winning song from Norway.

Despite being on the second row of the Stalls I didn’t get a Wagon Wheel. Next year they’re doing Robinson Crusoe. As Berwick said, 'if you do Jack and the Beanstalk, you pretty much have to have a beanstalk, and a cow', and he likes to take a title and see where it goes.

* I think I’ve missed about 5 of them, the first 3, and *ahem*, those in 2004 and 2005 when I was otherwise engaged.