Panto!

Panto! is a 2012 one-off Christmas special, made by Baby Cow Productions and broadcast by ITV on Thursday 27 December 2012. The special centres on Lewis Loud, a local Morecambe disk jockey in his stage debut of Dick Whittington at the Grand Theatre, Lancaster as Jack the Lad.

Panto!
Opening Titles
GenreComedy Drama
Written byJohn Bishop
Jonathan Harvey
Directed byChristine Gernon
StarringJohn Bishop
Sheridan Smith
Chesney Hawkes
Samantha Spiro
Mark Benton
Michael Cochrane
Kaye Wragg
Lisa Jackson
Trevor Dwyer-Lynch
Kenneth Cranham
Ending themeAeroplane
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of episodes1
Production
Executive producersJohn Bishop
Lisa Thomas
Lindsay Hughes
Henry Normal
ProducerJohn Rushton
Running time90 minutes
Production companyBaby Cow Productions
Release
Original networkITV, STV, UTV
Picture formatPAL (576i)
Audio formatStereo
Original release27 December 2012 (2012-12-27)

Plot

Lewis Loud (John Bishop) is doing his early morning radio show at Morecambe FM [1] with his less than impressed producer Deborah (Lisa Jackson) at his side. After the show, Lewis heads to rehearsals for his first ever pantomime Dick Whittington where a romance between him and Dick, Tamsin (Sheridan Smith) [2] has been blossoming. Tamsin is also known as 'Mad Mindy, The Axe Murderer' from the nation's favourite soap. A full dress-rehearsal has been called for the show [3] by Producer Di (Samantha Spiro) as tensions begin to build. Di's nervous daughter Chantelle (Ami Metcalf) stars as the obvious miscast love interest of Dick while Director Francis (Mark Benton) tries hard to pull the show together while Di keeps interfering with his decisions. Johnny Darby (Michael Cochrane) a famous Channel 5 star goes into drag while accident prone Chesney Hawkes tries to make the show. While all this is happening, Lewis' son Paul (played by Bishop's real-life son Daniel) is dropped off with him while Lewis' ex-wife Gina (Kaye Wragg) and her new boyfriend Tony (Trevor Dwyer-Lynch) go on an exotic holiday that they won by creating a jingle for a toilet company. Tamsin however gets offered by her agent Jerry (Kenneth Cranham) to go on Celebrity Sleigh Ride, a new reality show which sees celebrities battling to the North Pole with a vote-off day to day. Tamsin takes the offer with her agent also offering Lewis to go but he declines to face his responsibility with Paul. The cast is then reformed to match the show with Paul playing the cat and Greg Chip (Dean Whatton) the original cat playing Dick. Gina dumps Tony to be on her own after coming back from the airport after their flights were cancelled as the toilet company went bust. At the end, Lewis [4] plays football with Paul after the show was a success.

Characters

References
  1. Panto!, ITV1 -- Comedian's co-written comic drama follows festive conventions flawlessly, by Lisa-Marie Ferla, 27 December 2012, Retrieved 29 December 2012
  2. John Bishop to write and star in ITV panto comedy, by Matthew Hemley, The Stage News, Retrieved 29 December 2012
  3. An all star cast join comedian John Bishop in Panto! on ITV tonight!, by TV Writer Lynn, 27 December 2012, Unreality Primetime, Retrieved 29 December 2012
  4. John Bishop brings Panto! to ITV, from Chortle, The UK Comedy Guide; retrieved 29 December 2012
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