I’LL never forget the first time I took my niece to the pantomime.

She was about four and was restless and excited, in her Snow White dress, as the auditorium filled up with other giddy youngsters.

As the curtain rose and the dancers leapt across the stage, awash with shiny primary colours, Ellie’s face broke into a happy grin. Then the Wicked Witch appeared, in a cloud of green smoke, and it all got a bit tense. Ellie looked up, tears welling in her eyes. “I don’t like her,” she whispered.

As the boos and hisses grew louder around us, and the witch cackled and sneered at the audience, Ellie was quickly beside herself with terror.

“I don’t like it. I really want to go home!” she sobbed, clinging to me. “It’ll be okay, you’ll see,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. The hysterics went on for an eternity, then the witch finally disappeared, the bright lights were back on and the dancing girls in pretty dresses returned. Ellie calmed down, decided she would stay and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the show.

The one thing I wanted to avoid telling her was: “It’s not real.” Because to a young child, of course, everything they see on stage IS real. And being scared is all part of the thrill of live theatre.

As the panto season gets underway, it’s heartening to know that, despite all the demands on their leisure time, children are still thrilled by theatre. Panto has had to move with the times, and big productions such as the Alhambra’s show include spectacular special effects and technical wizardry, but the traditional element of pantomime is retained too. As well as flying motorbikes, 3D caves and giant crocodiles, the Alhambra panto has Billy Pearce doing the “slosh” - a slapstick routine usually involving buckets of water and custard pies - and the audience yelling: “He’s behind you!” Twenty-first century children may be techno-savvy and uber cool, but they still laugh at Billy falling into the orchestra pit, or a giant gorilla chasing a man in a pink frock.

Amateur pantos are just as entertaining, with the added element of in-jokes and friends and family in the cast. And thankfully they now have tighter scripts and snappily paced song-and-dance numbers. As a child I went to the same am dram panto every year, in a town hall, and it was painfully old-fashioned. The principal boy, played by an actress from the gung-ho thigh-slapping school of principal boys, warbled through a series of insufferable romantic duets that left rows of us children fidgeting and yawning. But we still loved it all, especially the gags and the sweets being chucked out.

Panto is often children’s first experience of theatre, and it stays with them. My early trips to the Alhambra panto are ingrained in my memory. I remember being so excited when Cannon and Ball made their entrance - Bobby in a wheelbarrow pushed by Tommy - that I was trembling.

Performing in panto is a skill, and with it comes a responsibility to get it right so children will be encouraged to return to theatre. As actress Charlie Hardwick, who’s in this year’s Alhambra panto, points out: “It’s not just standing on stage and acting daft.”

The Alhambra is taking great strides in making theatre accessible to a variety of audiences. Signed performances for the hearing impaired, audio guides for people with sight problems and ‘touch tours’ for them to go on the stage before a show and feel their way around the set and props, are some of the ways the Bradford theatre is broadening the theatrical experience. And this year there’s a special ‘relaxed performance’ for audience members on the autism spectrum.

There’s nothing quite like live theatre, and it’s important that it’s inclusive. “Oh yes it is,” as Billy would say.

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