Friday 25 May 2007

The Point of Pantomime

What two things do Charlotte Church, Myleene Klass, Selma Hayek and Emma Bunton have in common with my wife? Well, neither Selma nor my wife have had a hideous and painful pop music career. Only Charlotte is Welsh. And, obviously, only one of them is stunningly beautiful and incredibly talented. But enough about my wife.

The first thing is that they are all about five months pregnant. Which is wonderful, of course, but which also proves that they were all at a bit of a loose end in December of last year. For the four of them I have actually named, this clearly means that they were not busy enough at the time. This is not surprising. They are all, nominally (as anyone who has seen The Charlotte Church Show will testify, very nominally) in the entertainment business. But if you are working in that world, there isn't a lot to do come December. All of the Christmas stuff is recorded months in advance. Christmas concerts are similarly booked far ahead. There's nothing for a D list celebrity to do but sit at home, twiddle her thumbs and - so it would seem - open her legs.

Unless, of course, she can get a job in pantomime.

Let us get one thing straight from the start, I have nothing at all against pantomime. It is a fine British institution which, like cricket, has the added virtue of being completely incomprehensible to most Americans. It can trace its history back for hundreds of years (no, I'm not going to explain it, don't you know how to use Google yet?). It also, very helpfully, keeps talented but cringemakingly dull comedians off our television screens. In fact, I doubt that the likes of Russ Abbott or Bobby Davro have done any other work for at least a decade, whilst I'll bet that it is only the prospect of playing the Good Fairy each December that keeps June Whitfield alive.

The second thing that all of these ladies have in common, then, is that none of them appeared in pantomime last Christmas. Which leads me to the last good thing about panto: It stops minor celebrities breeding.

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