Summertime Christmas in Crawley!

Christmas came early to Crawley on Friday on a hot late-summer's day as the panto cast convened to offer a taste of the fun ahead this winter.
By The Newsroom
Published 27th Aug 2016, 14:01 BST
Updated 7th Jun 2018, 22:39 BST
EmmaEmma
Emma

You’d want pantos to be full of excitement, and EastEnders’ Emma Barton was full of it.

“The most important thing for me is that I am going to be flying on stage,” says Emma, who will be in Crawley this Christmas. “And I have never flown before on stage.”

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She will be playing Tinkerbell opposite Shaun Williamson (EastEnders, Extras) as Captain Hook in Peter Pan at the Hawth from Friday, December 9-January 2 (tickets on 01293 553636 or visit www.hawth.co.uk).

Portsmouth-born Emma – Honey Mitchell in the soap from November 2005 to September 2008 and then again full time from last year – has got all the enthusiasm the part of Tinkerbell is going to demand, but she freely admits she has also got a few inches more than ideally she’d want.

“She is supposed to be a fairly dainty character obviously, and I am very tall!”

But it is going to be great, Emma is convinced, particularly teaming up with Shaun again.

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Shaun comes to it all on the back of a great run of theatre credits. Before One Man, Two Guv’nors with Emma, he toured in a stage version of the classic TV sitcom Porridge. He’s also gone on to enjoy a stint as Mr Perks in The Railway Children at King’s Cross. Similarly, he relished Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

“And now, this is my 15th panto,” says Shaun “I think I have done one pretty much every year since I left EastEnders. I love it. I wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t do panto every year. It becomes a habit. I don’t think I would want eight weeks off over Christmas or the two weeks that people get in normal jobs. I think I would just get bored. I am being totally serious. I just love working, and doing a panto actually makes Christmas Day really special – because it is the only day you get off. I wouldn’t know what to do otherwise.

But the bottom line is that he genuinely loves panto: “It is just magical, and you have got to remember that for a lot of children, it is the first time they have been to the theatre.”

Which, of course, makes it a big responsibility for the actors. They have got to take the chance to hook (or maybe Captain-Hook) the audiences of the future and reel them in.

“It is going to be great!”