The UK Pantomime Association tells us there are about 260 pantos going on across the UK this season.<\/p>\n
However, it’s not all roses for actors – oh no it isn’t! <\/p>\n
Alicia says roles are in high demand, even for actors who have other jobs. <\/p>\n
When she’s not waiting for true love’s kiss, she is playing Monica Geller in the UK tour edition of the Friends musical parody. <\/p>\n
“We have a gap over Christmas and luckily I was able to audition and find a panto that could just fit my dates, otherwise I would have no income over Christmas,” she says.<\/p>\n
Simon Sladen, chair of the UK Pantomime Association, a charity championing panto, tells BBC Newsbeat that Alicia’s case is not unusual.<\/p>\n
“This is your one time of the year where you might be able to guarantee work, particularly if you’re going back to a venue year after year,” he explains. <\/p>\n
“Between maybe November and January, a quarter of the year, you know that you’re going to be in a job that you love, enjoy and are bringing wonderful entertainment to everybody.”<\/p>\n
While he says it can be “big bucks” if you’re famous, for the ensemble, there’s still work to be done.<\/p>\n
He says Equity, and other unions, are working to protect performers’ rights.<\/p>\n
“Not every pantomime is offering an Equity standard contract,” he says. <\/p>\n
“So there are a lot of things to be looked at there, because we don’t want an industry that is exploiting or is not rewarding its employees in a way that they would be in other places.”<\/p>\n
But jobs are still “competitive”.<\/p>\n
“I think because of where pantomime is now, in the sense of being respected and having this great quality, I think more people want to be in it,” he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK Pantomime Association tells us there are about 260 pantos going on across the UK this season.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-342785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}