{"id":201517,"date":"2025-12-20T07:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T07:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/201517\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T07:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T07:07:09","slug":"i-was-burning-7000-calories-a-day-my-body-just-shut-down-it-was-terrifying-irish-panto-dames-on-the-toughest-gig-in-showbusiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/201517\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I was burning 7,000 calories a day. My body just shut down. It was terrifying\u2019 \u2013 Irish panto dames on the toughest gig in showbusiness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">\nIt\u2019s a role coveted by actors and enjoyed by audiences of all ages every Christmas, but playing a dame is harder than it looks. We speak to this year\u2019s panto stars about donning big dresses and bad make-up and pushing their bodies to the limit on stage\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Maclean Burke and Al Porter at the Olympia Theatre. Photo: Mark Condren\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/urke Al Porter  141.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Maclean Burke and Al Porter at the Olympia Theatre. Photo: Mark Condren<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">In panto, playing the part of the dame \u2013 be it the Cook in Dick Whittington, Widow Twankey or Mother Goose \u2013 is like nabbing the role of Hamlet. A prestige role that doesn\u2019t get bigger or better.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Men masquerading as a matronly dame became common practice after HJ Byron created the character of Widow Twankey in Aladdin in 1861, and since then, they have been a defining part of panto \u2013 carrying the narrative and storyline along at a breakneck pace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a role coveted by actors and enjoyed by audiences of all ages every Christmas, but playing a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9484,93,61,60,9715],"class_list":["post-201517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-christmas","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kirsty-blake-knox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}