This week Imagine Theatre is celebrating its 18th birthday and Martin talks to Steve about the history of the company – how the company came into being, how it came to be called Imagine, Mi workshops, the landmark moments and much more. 

The podcast also features birthday wishes from some of the amazing people Imagine have worked with over the years. 

Martin heads to Staffordshire University for this episode of the podcast to speak to the students on the MA in Contemporary Pantomime Practice as well as Robert Marsden and Richard Cheshire who created and run the course and Sarah Boden who was a guest speaker on the day.

 This vocationally led course offers both research and practical study in the pantomime genre to enhance the students’ understanding of pantomime and develop their skillset. Martin talks to the students about their reasons for joining the course and what it is that they love about panto.

This week Martin went behind the scenes at the 2023 UK Pantomime Association Awards at the Trafalgar Theatre in the West End.

 The event celebrates all things panto and is an opportunity for everyone from the panto world to come together to honour the genre. Martin spoke to Sir Ian McKellen, Vernon Kay, Debbie McGee, Joe McElderry, JP McCue, Anna-Jane Casey, Damian Williams, Sam Munday-Webb and Simon Sladen as well as our very own Steve and Sarah Boden about their love of the panto industry and their delight at picking up 3 awards.

 Thank you to the UKPA for allowing us to record the podcast. Music by James Harrison. Official photos by Andrew Billington and Bekki Frost.

This week Martin talks to three members of the UK Pantomime Association - Simon Sladen, Samuel Munday-Webb and Nick Humby. 

Founded in 2021 the UK Pantomime Association is a charity with the aim of exploring, sharing and celebrating pantomime. They ardently believe in the positive promotion of pantomime and inspiring and encouraging others to engage with the genre.

In addition they hold the annual pantomime awards each April to celebrate the industry at Trafalgar Theatre in the West End.

On the podcast learn more about the Association, their motivation, practices and aims as well as the impending award ceremony.

This week sees Martin catching up with Steve and Sarah to see what is happening at Imagine during March. 

 He talks to Sarah about the huge workload she and the accounts team have in reconciling accounts for the end of the financial year and how this affects budgeting for the 2023 season. Also under discussion are the current challenges faced by both the industry and the general public by the rising costs and any potential strategies that may arise as a result.

 The Imagine team also talk to Martin about their delight at the Imagine shows receiving 12 nominations for the UK Pantomime Association Awards this year.

Something different for the ‘Just Imagine’ podcast series, Martin sits down with Imagine’s Managing Director Steve Boden, and our Artistic Director and renowned pantomime writer Eric Potts to talk about the pantomime Cinderella. 

 This is the first of several ‘special’ podcast episodes, spread over the next 2 years, where we work through the popular pantomime titles in turn, examining them in more depth by talking through the title’s roots, the background story, the unique elements of the title, things to consider such as set, costume, scripting, music, box office popularity etc. They then also consider how Cinderella might move forwards into the future… 

This week Martin interviews the incredible Nigel Ellacott, pantomime dame extraordinaire and the brains behind the encyclopaedic pantomime website www.itsbehindyou.com. Join them both in this fascinating walk-through pantomime over the years. Listening to Nigel talk, you’ll soon understand why the UK Pantomime Association chose him as the recipient of their 2022 award for Outstanding Achievement in the field of pantomime.

This week Martin catches up with Steve and Sarah and finds, contrary to popular belief, they are not able to put their feet up now the panto season has finished and have a well-earned rest. Join him as he talks to them about how the 2022 panto season went, how it was to have six brand new venues for 2022, their pride at having almost half a million people watch an Imagine pantomime and why the team are still so busy even though all of the Imagine pantomimes have closed.

Vernon Kay has done almost everything from playing American football, to modelling, radio and TV presenting, to taking part in I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, but until this year one thing he had never done was appear in a panto. Now he is getting rave reviews as Dandini in Cinderella in Wycombe and he joins us for our festive special podcast which also features Christmas messages and festive jokes from the team at Imagine.

From falling in love with ballroom dancing and sequins as a youngster to developing a passion for drama and musical theatre through school, Christian Patterson has become a well-respected performer, writer and director.

Christian talks to Martin about his extensive career, his influences and his love of the panto genre.