UK Pantomime Association Award nominees announced
The UK Pantomime Association has announced its nominations for its third annual Awards, which will take place at G Live in Guildford on 18 June following two highly successful events in 2022 and 2023 at the Trafalgar Theatre in London.
The Awards celebrate the breadth and diversity of pantomimes across the UK with a full range of performance and creative categories, and three overall Best Pantomime Awards based on the venue audience capacity. The Awards are assessed on extensive judges visits by an average of three judges to each of around 250 productions over the Christmas 2023 period.
The most nominated productions in this year’s nominations are for Marlowe Canterbury’s production of Aladdin with seven category nominations including Best Dame, Best Magical Being and Best Script, as well a nomination for Best Pantomime (over 900 seats). Tunbridge Wells Assembly Hall’s production of Beauty and the Beast and Macrobert Arts Centre’s Aladdin both received four nominations. Interestingly, this also made Aladdin the most nominated title with sixteen nominations, indicating that producers are updating this sometime criticised title to reflect modern attitudes. The productions of Jack and the Beanstalk at Birmingham Hippodrome and Theatre Royal Stratford East each received three nominations, with Birmingham also being nominated for Best Pantomime (over 900 seats). We called the Birmingham show “a jewel in the pantomime crown” when we reviewed it in December. Theatr Clywd‘s version of Sleeping Beauty in the temporary tent venue also picked up three nominations. These shows are all traditionally amongst the best shows in the country and the producers do a very good job maintaining standards every year.
We reviewed the Clywd show and wrote “Welsh dame Phylip Harries, in his twentieth year at the venue, was in charge from his first appearance on a motorised pink elephant” so it is no surprise to see him joining Ray Spenser, Elaine C Smith, Jonny McKnight, and Ben Roddy in a strong Best Dame Nomination category.
We had a similar view of John Evans as Smee in Peter Pan at Venue Cymru when we wrote “he had the audience eating out of his hands with his strong charming stage presence, great comic timing and easy engagement of the audience”. The Best Comic category is another strong category with Evans up against Stewart McCheyne, Matt Slack, Aidan O’Neil, and Helen McAlpine.
Another of the defining roles in pantomime is the villain. The nominees are Tom Lister, Glyn Morgan, Will Jennings, James Sterling, and Wendi Harricott. We reviewed Jennings as King Percy Rat at Salisbury Playhouse and wrote that he “dominates each scene from his first appearance out of stage trap with his posh accent, bags of personality and engaging physicality”. The Salisbury production is also nominated for Best Music for Ong Chen Kan and Best Pantomime (500-900 seats).
The Best Sisters is another competitive category with productions of Cinderella at Belgrade Coventry, Buxton Opera House, Everyman Liverpool, Malvern Festival Theatre and The Theatre at Chipping Norton getting nominated. We reviewed Iain Lauchlan and Andy Hockley at the Belgrade and wrote “both are delightful to watch. They make a great team and have a great rapport between them, with the other characters and most importantly with the audience”.
It is also delightful to see smaller venues making the nomination lists where the producers creativity and innovation makes up for the smaller budgets. The Kenton Theatre In Henley on Thames is nominated for Best Magical Being with Lara Beth-Sas in Sleeping Beauty of whom we wrote was “a brightly coloured Fairy Sprout with a strong northern accent , reacting well to the audience and other characters”. While at the other end of the scale it is great to see famous names making their first steps in pantomime like David Suchet as Hook at Bristol Hippodrome who is nominated as Best Newcomer to pantomime and who we wrote about as “he is everything you expect from the character in pantomime. Gleefully evil, he send himself up in the business, wholeheartedly throwing himself into the fights and comedy”.
The Best Pantomime 900 plus seats is always the hottest category as these larger venues attract the bigger budgets and stars and have built up a strong local following over the years. As well as Aladdin at The Marlowe and Jack and the Beanstalk in Birmingham, the category includes Mother Goose at Derby Arena, Sleeping Beauty at the Hexagon Reading and Snow White at Kings Glasgow. Our reviewers described Mother Goose as “a visual feast with colourful sets and costumes and a wonderful production”. It is also nominated for Best Costume. We described Sleeping Beauty as “an excellent example of the pantomime genre and is perfectly pitched for the young family audience”. It is also up for Best Director.
With so many shows to pick from, getting a nomination is a tremendous accolade for each performer and production, and the Awards ceremony is traditionally a celebration of the genre and the community of people who work together to create the shows. Winning is, of course, the final aspiration but being invited to be part of the event as nominee is a wonderful, shared experience. The public can share in this joy too by buying tickets through the G Live box office here.
The full list of nominees can be found here.
The winners will be announced on 18 June .