The actor’s ultimate ethic — ‘the show must go on’ — seemed to inspire the performers from KS2 who put on this jolly pantomime satire in the last weeks of term. Several children were ill and had to go home straight after the show, but sang and joked anyway, while others took on roles at short notice with hardly a prompt visible.

In fact ‘Panto Pandemonium’ turned out to be one of St. Aidan’s most memorable Christmas productions. The play itself has a huge range of character parts, since the plot involves a witch (the excellent Beatrice) bent on upsetting the usual logic of all pantos everywhere. She is foiled by a Good Fairy (Jamilla, whose starry wand makes an excellent implement for hair twiddling as well as magic) and a posse of St. Aidan’s pupils.

Their quest is to retrieve three magic objects. On the way they encounter not only the fearful witch, but her two slaves, the sibilant slimeballs Spotty and Grotty (Molly and Semilore); Cinderella’s two Ugly Sisters (Eddie and Eli in bedraggled wigs and balloon breasts, slightly camp, slightly goofy); seven dwarves including one who hiccoughs (Sina) in a most convincing manner and Jack (Fred in a charmingly affected muddle) without any sort of a beanstalk.

If many individual performances deserve credit, then so too did the singing, which was always tuneful and enthusiastic, even when the choreographed swaying from side to side slid dangerously into opposite directions.

We clapped, we sang, we booed and hissed — the latter as prompted by Ana and Lola, toting Boo and Hiss placards. It all added up to fantastic fun. Oh yes it did!

Sue Webster