Spreading Panto Fever

A tiny South Warwickshire village without even a pub has become a pantomime capital of the world. Pantos performed in Combroke, near Kineton are now being re-enacted as far afield as Australia and Canada,with a little help from the worldwide web. Resident Merlin Price who has co-written the scripts with Derek Dwyer (foreground) of Lillington for the last ten years, said the pair decided to make them accessible through the internet rather than let them gather dust. "There is a dearth of reasonable, newish pantos and we are both interested in the internet. It just seemed a natural thing to do," he explained. Their web page, accessed under 'pantomime', was set up over a year ago. It provides a brief history of pantomime and excerpts from their scripts, which include Cinderella and Aladdin. "We have been very surprised by the response. Around 3,500 hits and enquiries from all over the world," added Merlin, a retired schools inpector, who has also written childrens' novels. "Quite a few are being performed in this country, as well as Toronto and Sydney. We e-mail the scripts and do get one or two queries about particularly English jokes, although we take out the topical and local jokes beforehand." The Combroke Players, made up of residents of all ages, will be treading the boards in the village hall next month to perform The Pied Piper, with millenium bugs rather than rats - one script has already been sold.