Gregory Ashton, aged 37, is playing the pantomime dame in a production of Aladdin in Bury St Edmunds. The show is unique because it is happening in circus tent (and incorporates some circus acts). This is because the old Georgian Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds, which is producing this show is still in the process of being renovated.

“The weird thing about being a dame is that when you are in your costume you are everyoneÕs favourite person but when you are not dressed up, you are this weird nobody. After one panto, all the kids ran up to the princess at the stage door and one kid said to me, Ôwere you the cow?Õ. My dad finds it hard that his son wears a dress. He is proud that I am the focus in the show and the laughterÕs coming from me but he is also thinking, my son is in a dress every year, is it my fault? ”

A pantomime dame is a unique cross-dressing character who is a crucial part of any pantomime, a uniquely English theatrical tradition, put on during the Christmas season in theatres across the UK. There are certain set dame characters and they are decked in a different outrageous costume for every entrance. Their flirtatious humour is always based on the fact that they clearly are men in frocks.