Its panto season and this year we held four festive days out, and for Gary and Davina, our founding directors three visits were to the Beast’s Castle for Beauty and the Beast, on no they didn’t …. Oh yes, they did! It was brilliant to take all our staff, foster families, young people, and their support networks on our annual trip to the pantomimes. This year we visited the Cast Theatre in Doncaster to see Sleeping Beauty, The Courtyard Theatre in Hereford, Wyvern Theatre in Swindon and Thameside Theatre in Grays who were all showing Beauty and the Beast.
All the shows were fantastic, the sparkling sets and costumes were beautiful and really got us in the panto mood. There was high energy, interactive fun, laugh out loud jokes, hero’s and villains, gloriously garish gowns, fantastic singing and dancing. Each show was a fantastic celebration of silliness, which as I’m sure you can imagine our young people find hilarious!
The Doncaster panto featured sign language throughout, encouraging the audience to join in by teaching a few words. This was both brilliant and inclusive for some of our young people who use Makaton to communicate.
With so much uncertainty in the world it is lovely to escape what is going on and during the pantomimes we found ourselves surrounded by our staff teams and foster families, some have to been to every one of our trips to the theatre but for many of our young people new in placement it is their first experience of a pantomime, but somehow, we all know the score. You join in, you shout, you sing along, you clap, you boo, and it is lovely to see to our young people completely immersed in the show having the best time. We can’t wait to take you all again next year!
