Rehearsals for this year’s panto at the Her Majesty’s Theatre in Aberdeen are now underway – oh yes they are!
Panto queen Elaine C Smith returns to the Granite City for the swashbuckling tale of adventure, Peter Pan. Joining her are familiar faces Jordan Young and Alan McHugh, who also wrote the script.
Last year the trio entertained crowds with their tale of Beauty and the Beast, with the panto queen giving a particularly memorable performance – including her take on Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball.
Elaine, who came up with the idea herself to include the stunt in the show, said yesterday she never anticipated how well received it would be.
She said: “As I went across, you could feel the audience saying to themselves, ‘please say she’s not really doing that’.”
Despite the success of the sketch, Elaine said she isn’t feeling the pressure to top it this year.
“There in lies destruction if you start saying, we have to make it better,” she said.
“No, you just have to make a good show. And because last year’s was so good, I said maybe I’ll have a year off. I don’t know how to make this better. But then February came around and I started thinking about ideas and what we could do.
“All you want is people going out saying that was a good show, I had a great night.”
Yesterday the famous faces were also joined at rehearsals by local lads, Christopher Tawse, seven, from Crombie School, Westhill, eight-year-old AedanDufton, from Crathes Primary, Logan Reid, 10, from Mile End Primary in Aberdeen and Henry Ronaldson, 13, from Robert Gordon’s College, who won their roles as the Darling boys following auditions in October.