Lots of S4K performers have temporarily left the summer fairyland of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the winter fun of pantoland.

And no fewer than three of our actors will be putting on the frivolous frocks and grotesque make-up to play Ugly Sisters in Cinderella.

Our Bottom – Sean Luckham – joins Lisa Riley and Sid Little to play Daisy, one of Cinderella’s nasty step-sisters, at the Grand Opera House, York.

While Ben Goodridge (Snug/Lion) and Richard Foster King (Flute/Thisbe) are refusing to be separated this festive season and joining up with How Clean is Your House? Queen of Clean Kim Woodburne to portray the gruesome twosome, Danny and Cheryl, in Cinderella at the Woodville Halls in Gravesend. Basil Brush also gets in on the act there.

Antony Stuart-Hicks is recognised as the youngest dame in the country and our Egeus/Peter Quince will be turning on the laughter at the Queen’s Theatre in Barnstaple when he plays Widow Twankey in Aladdin.

Even Stepen McGlynn – Banquo in S4K’s Macbeth for our Gibraltar this year – is donning the frock for the first time making his Dame debut as Nanny Fanny in Sleeping Beauty in Spalding.

Clare Reilly, the Dream’s Helena, features as the beautiful Princess Jasmine in Aladdin at the Little Theatre in Sherringham .

And Claire Coultry, our very own fairy, will be flying off to play another fairy in Jack and the Beanstalk which tours various venues in Lancashire.

Our backstage team are also in on the act of course – Technical Manager Ben Adcock is also up in the North West with George Critchley’s tour of Jack and the Beanstalk; Musical Director Teresa Barlow is in charge of the musicians in Southsea’s Jack and the Beanstalk , starring I'm A Celebrity's Britt Ekland; Nick “Bam Bam” Polley is banging his drum at the St Alban's Arena's Peter Pan.

But when the festive frolics of pantomania come to and end it’s business as usual for our Dream Team and they will be jetting off to entertain S4K fans from January 10 to 13 at DUCTAC in Dubai before resuming the A Midsummer Night’s Dream UK tour.

The next leg kicks off at Southend’s Cliffs Pavilion on January 31 and keeps right on going until April 7 in Wakefield.

Look out for a few cast changes too as we have had to wave goodbye to our Titania/Hippolyta and Oberon/Theseus (Emily Jordan and Richard Munday). Pyramus will also be wooing a new Thisbe as Richard Foster King has also left the cast.

But it will be business as usual for most of the team, with Sean Luckham and his out-of-control wig as boisterous Bottom and Noel Andrew Harron as the naughty Puck whom all the kids love.

Our photogenic dames are (top to bottom):

Sean Luckham as Daisy with the lovely Lisa Riley

Richard Foster King as Danny and Ben Goodridge as Cheryl

Antony Stuart-Hicks as Widow Twankey with David Phipps-Davies as Abanazar
(c) Robert Workman