Why Hastings panto star Ben Watson keeps on coming back for more

He’s back again this year as Buttons, once again teaming up with his great mate Tim McArthur as Fairy Godmother, for Cinderella which runs from December 15-31.

“I even reside in Hastings now,” Ben says. “I'm a proud Hastings resident and it just feels like I have always lived here. Since 2016 I started coming to direct the summer youth projects and then I was coming down at Christmas as well and it just got to the point where people were saying to me ‘Ben, have you ever thought about living here?’ And I was going to move down here in 2019 or 2020. I was out on tour and then I was going to come back to Hastings. I was actually covering for Joe Pasquale in Some Mothers Do Have ‘Em and then the pandemic changed everything. But I did move to Hastings in the end and I moved here in 2020 and it really has been a dream move. I just love the energy down here and I love the pace of life. I like to swim and I like to paddle board. I was a very keen surfer growing up. I never lived by the sea but I would always go off surfing. I just feel that I've always had an affinity with the sea... and with Hastings. I just love the vibe. There was an artist that described Hastings as a ‘raggedy paradise’ and I think that's a lovely way to describe the town. It's got character and it's got individuality. Everybody in Hastings is their own selves.”

And now it’s panto time again.

“I think my overall feeling is gratitude. I'm just grateful to have the opportunity to perform here every Christmas especially as pantomime is something that is just so important for families. It's families’ Christmas treat and it just feels a real honour and a privilege and a pleasure to still be Hastings’ comic and to still have that fantastic relationship that I've struck up with Mr Tim McArthur which in a weird way is a kind of mother-son relationship... except this year it is more of a Fairy Godmother-son relationship!

“I missed out in 2018 but together we have done 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022 and now 2023 so this is our fifth time together. It is certainly a meeting of something! But I think we're very similar and I do think we share the same sense of humour though we still do complement each other very well. Tim is the Dame so his is the more adult humour. Being the comic my role is to be much more family orientated in the humour and much more silly. And it's really lovely that we can work off each other. We can build on something and there is no sense at all of competitiveness... at least not from me! We support each other. You are doing two or three shows a day so many days a week and it's hard work but it is great to be together.”

A big part of the pleasure too is that panto is one of the great constants in our lives: “Times change and people come and go and fashions come and go and you can update the cultural references and you can update the music but the basic linear narrative of pantomime is basically unchanging. And the lovely thing is that it is something that is passed down from one generation to another. In fact I wanted to become an actor in the first place because of pantomime.”