Joyce McMillan: Panto season needs creativity

The BFG at the Lyceum is one of two Roald Dahl stories in Scottish theatres this Christmas. Picture: Contributed

THE end of November approaches, and the great Panto Grid begins to take shape on my desk.

At the moment, there are 22 professional shows scribbled into spaces on the grid, morning, noon and evening; but there could easily be a dozen more, in theatres from Inverness to Ayr, and beyond. There’s no denying the colossal scale of the Christmas show phenomenon, as it sweeps through Scotland’s theatres; for some venues, panto sales across three or four weeks, often with more than one performance a day, can represent almost half of their box office income for a year.

So when theatres run into trouble, the Christmas show is always the last production to go, and the first to return. One particularly happy opening night this year is the gala panto performance at the Byre in St Andrews, dark since January 2013, and now reopened at last, under university management, with a version of Jack And The Beanstalk created by the Bard In The Botanics company from Glasgow. Perth Theatre may be closed for refurbishment, but its annual panto appears at Perth Concert Hall, without missing a step. Theatres that generally don’t produce their own professional shows, like the Brunton in Musselburgh, make an exception for panto. And when new theatre spaces appear on the scene, like the gorgeous Beacon Arts Centre at Greenock, they use panto to attract audiences and affirm their presence; this year, the Beacon’s boss Julie Ellen directs a new version of Cinderella by Alan McHugh.