Ross makes his dame debut in Worthing panto

After his Worthing panto debut last year, Ross returns for Jack And The Beanstalk: The Pantomime at the Pavilion Theatre from Thursday, December 1-Monday, January 2. “Last year we did Beauty And The Beast and I was Belle's father. It went really well. The professor was not really in it that much. He was there in the first half and then disappeared rather in the second but it was a really lovely experience. It was that season when there were lots of pantos where they were losing members of the cast to Covid or losing members of the crew but we managed to get through completely Covid free fortunately. We all knew people that were in other pantos and everyone was messaging everyone and saying ‘Oh so and so somewhere has gone down with it’ or ‘Somewhere, someone else has gone down with Covid’ but we were really fortunate. We had a really good regime. We were all doing testing daily and wearing masks back stage and we managed to get through it.”

Given Ross’ long association with the venue it was perhaps surprising that he hadn't done panto for Worthing Theatres before: “But I suppose it was because I was still working at the theatre until February 2020. I was part-time programming there and I had my own company and I was doing Rainbow Theatre and it just got a bit too much in the end and I thought that I would give up the job and just focus on acting and freelancing and that is what I have done. When theatres were allowed to reopen that first Christmas they didn't do a full-scale panto. It was just a little Christmas show and I became involved with that and that was how I got my foot in the door.”

There is certainly a great Worthing pantomime tradition: “We used to have two pantos, one at the Connaught and one at the Pavilion and now it's just focusing on the Pavilion but Worthing audiences really love panto and I'm glad that we're still doing them. Panto is such a wonderful family-friendly thing. Everyone of all ages can enjoy it and it's something that you can take the children along to and everyone has great fun. It's magical and a lot of the stories of course are based on folk tales or fairy tales so there is that familiarity that you get and that fascination you get with the fairy tale. There's also that connection going back to the archetypes and also there is always a moral to the story. But it's always a very uplifting experience with lots of songs and jokes and lots of silly business. I was offered Dame Trot and this is my first time on a professional theatre stage as a dame. I've done dame for Rainbow Theatre when we used to tour into schools but I haven't done a dame with them for something like 15 or 20 years. The producer said to me for Worthing ‘Are you going to do a draggy dame or a traditional dame?’ and I felt that being classically trained I would definitely go down the traditional route!”