News, reviews, features and podcast on theatre across the UK
The British Theatre Guide Newsletter
No 1244: 28 December 2025
Editorial
I hope you had a wonderful Christmas if you celebrate such things and that Father Christmas brought you everything you wanted.
It’s been very quiet here at BTG over the past week as you can probably imagine, with very few shows opening for us to review and not a great deal of correspondence from press officers, who I assume have been taking some time off to enjoy the festivities. The flood of press releases will no doubt resume early in the New Year, but it will probably be at least late January before most of the new seasons get underway.
Many of our reviewers have been spending some time this month putting together the highlights of their theatre-going in 2025, as they usually do at this time of year. We will publish our group article of our reviewers’ favourites sometime in the next week or so, but the first of our individual ‘looking back’ articles is available now, in which Michael Quinn examines the highs and lows of Northern Irish theatre over the past year.
I know we often mention the economic argument for theatre, of which you would think that even the most philistine of politicians would take some notice, but Michael finishes his article with some interesting statistics: that public spending on the arts in Northern Ireland is £5.03 per capita compared to £25.90 just across the border in the Republic, and that Arts Council funding of £13.27 million generated £24 million Gross Value Added, which makes it look like a much better investment than anything you would get from a bank at the moment.
Just as I was thinking we wouldn’t get a new podcast episode on panto this year, the founders of The Big Tiny agreed to speak to me about their three pantos this year and their philosophy of panto last week, then early this week, our Panto Editor, Simon Sladen, spoke to Allan Stewart, who is celebrating no fewer than fifty years as a pantomime performer.
This year, he is playing Dame in Jack and the Beanstalk at Edinburgh Festival Theatre, but over the last few years, he would usually be seen at this time of year in panto at the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh, which is currently closed for refurbishment. However, he will be back at the King’s next Christmas in The Adventures of Pinocchio.
Allan spoke at length with Simon about his early days as a club performer and his entry into half a century of panto, including his on-stage partnership with Grant Stott and the late Andy Gray, the latter becoming a victim of COVID—he tells the sad story of how they had been rehearsing together in 2020, when Andy fell ill and died from this terrible disease that brought the world to a standstill.
But that’s about it from us for 2025. Enjoy any celebrations you may attend to see out the old year and in the new, and I will be back in your inbox in 2026, which I hope will bring you lots of good health, happiness and great theatre.
Shaun the Sheep’s Circus Show (Shaun Comerford and Yaron Lifschitz with QPAC, Screen Queensland, Merrigong Theatre Company and Circa Contemporary Circus) - Aviva Studios (Factory International), Manchester, –
The Enormous Crocodile (Roald Dahl Story Company with Leeds Playhouse and Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre) - The Lowry, Salford, –
