It may not seem so when the leading man's dressed as a woman and two of the cast are stuffed inside a cow costume - but pantomime is a serious business.

Paul Elliott, for instance, didn't get where he is today simply by enjoying himself.

Elliott, an avuncular man with silver hair and a tongue to match, is Britain's panto king.

From an office in the West End, he presides over a country-wide network of beanstalks, magic lamps and enough bears and dwarfs to keep Goldilocks and Snow White busy for life.

He is also a prolific producer of "conventional" shows (he did Jolson and in January will take the Royal Shakespeare Company's Richard III into London) but it is as Britain's Buttons-in-chief that he is happy to be known

"A lot of people try and put pantomime down and it drives me crazy," he says. "Years ago, a certain very well-known actress with a title asked me what I was doing and I talked about pantomime, and she physically moved her chair away.

"But I've never forgotten what it's like to walk into a place like the Alhambra, in all its wonderful glory, when you're eight or nine or ten. It's overwhelming."

Elliott is himself especially taken with the Alhambra just now, having landed for the first time the contract to produce its annual panto.

"Getting the Alhambra was a coup," says Elliott. "This is an experimental year to see how we get on. We hope we'll be asked back."

The show he has put into Bradford is a travelling production of Peter Pan, starring comedian Joe Pasquale and the one-time Dirty Den, Leslie Grantham.

A good panto, says Elliott, demands complete sincerity from cast, writers and producers. "It's got to look good, it's got to be fast and it's got to be clean. You can't afford to have in-jokes. People who make the band laugh and no-one else, make me mad."

To this end, the company manager of Peter Pan, and all Elliott's other regional troupes, are handed copies of his panto 'bible'. "Keep everyone under control and make sure the productions remain tight and clean," it says, with the last word underlined..."Please call me if any artiste plays up either on or off stage"..."They only do that once - whoever they are." says Elliott. "It's a funny way of handing in your notice."

Among those do take it seriously - the greats - he numbers Les Dawson, Brian Conley and Lionel Blair.

But greatness, he insists, depends on production values. Frank Bruno, for instance, was less than a knockout when he appeared in panto at the Alhambra - albeit at short notice - two years ago.

"This year he's working for me. I've written Goldilocks and the Three Bears for him, and he's a revelation.

"He's the ringmaster, he links it all together, he looks magnificent, he's the hero. Lasers, music, it's magical. That's what you've got to do with all these people. When I get my hands on them personally, I can make 'em look good."

With curtain-up at Bradford just two weeks away, Elliott is even more than usually keen to ensure a hit. "There have been some great pantomime producers, and Francis Laidler in Bradford was certainly one of them," he says.

"I hope that in 100 years' time they'll say the same about me."

l Peter Pan is at the Alhambra from December 18 to February 7. For booking information, call 01274 752000.

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