I have been updating a couple of pages on the site including my Princess and the Pigs page. (You can now download and read the script.)

While doing so, I found the group that produced my panto earlier this year have put some photos of the show on their web site. The last picture is of me with some of the cast.

Well worth a look.

Hunsdon, Hertfordshire, for the matinee performance of The Princess and the Pigs.

Yep, Rich and I drove for an hour around the M25 and up the A10 to see the Quintessence production of the new fairy tale in pantomime that I wrote produced, and directed with Addlestone Community Theatre last January.

This is the first time I have had work produced where I haven’t been involved and where a theatre group has just paid me a licence fee to perform the show. I was completely detached from it and it felt weird to be watching someone else’s interpretation of my script. A whole new experience for me, and something I will no doubt have to get used to.

It was a typical village panto with a hundred people gathered in a little village hall with loads of children and cuddly toy pigs. I was very impressed. Quintessence did a great job with wonderful sets and costumes and completely different ways of looking at the whole thing. I was particularly pleased with the piggies who had great costumes and all had names: Peter, Porky, Pandora, Polly, and Pedro!

The mumbling Gardener was wonderful; Dim the Messenger was hilarious; and I loved Buttons too. He pops on half way through thinking Princess Pearlina (dressed in rags and working on the pig farm in Pigglesborough) is Cinderella and tells her she ’shall go to the ball’. It soon becomes clear he’s got the wrong panto and the young boy who played him rushed off stage shouting at his mum and blaming the sat nav! Brilliant!

But my favourite part of the show was definitely the ‘Crohemian Rhapsody’ where Count Cronos and his three cronies, Hands, Cristi and Anderson dressed as waiters do a great re-working of the Queen number - all six minutes of it! The audience were roaring with laughter. (I see a little silhouette of Peter Pan. Anderson! Anderson! Will you tell him wrong panto!) I can remember having spent many, many hours writing the lyrics for this to suit the individual characters involved and it certainly paid off - it was just so funny to watch.

And watching the joy on the faces of all the little children in the audience with their cuddly toy pigs as they climbed on stage and performed the dance routine for the audience participation number was absolutely priceless.

Let’s all Oink! Oink! Oink!
Here’s my piggy, he’s with me
Let’s all Oink! Oink! Oink!
Watch my piggy eat his tea
To the left, to the right
Now my piggy swims the sea
Come let’s dance everyone
With your piggies if you please!

Well done Quintessence! Thank you for such a lovely afternoon. I’m very proud of you all!

Following Addlestone Community Theatre’s success earlier this year with the world premiere of my new pantomime, I’m very pleased to announce that I have today issued an amatuer performance licence to Quintessence, a theatre group near Ware in Hertfordshire who will be producing The Princess and the Pigs in the Hunsdon Village Hall, 17th-19th January 2008.