Author's Note:

We'd had some other people in doing a less well known Pantomime  in the year preceding Jack and the Beanstalk, and I was asked by Sharon, the Director for a "big name, well known Panto." Well, Jack and the Beanstalk is as well known as it gets, and each director has a tone they request and set for the  script and I try to oblige!  One thing I found I didn't like in other versions of 'Jacks' was the way he was often basically an idiot, so I made our Jack a bit of a geek,  and the link man his semi-real imaginary friend. Zeebeedee is usefully uni-sex which is always a helpful thing in Amateur theatre and lives in mortal fear that when Jack discovers girls he is going to fade away from existence.  Zeebeedee gets to be heroic at the end and become real so gets a happy ending as well.  Jack has lots of ideas, and helps people out but is not being stupid when he takes the beans because they have been spray painted as fake gold nuggets, and of course he does discover girls when he meets Princess Jill. The other major difference is that the Giants are not the bad guys - they have been identity-thefted by some Evil Nasties which makes it a lot easier to get a good boo and hiss going on throughout the show, especially when they kidnap the Princess! Add into that Fairy Holly, and a Dame that is a single mum who literally holds down so many part time jobs trying to make ends meet that she needs a plethora of different aprons and hats to keep the Kingdom going, there is plenty going on for all parts of the cast. Even the chorus had fun with their eternal quest for a turnip!

Probably one of my favourite bits that had the audience in tears of laughter was the puppet scene where we had replica small puppet bodies and the actors heads pretended they were incredibly small in Giant Land. They ended up doing a medley of  dance including YMCA. It was hilarious !

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