As I walked to work this morning, pondering a project to give to our next work experience students, I realised that with Easter not long behind us, believe it or not the Playhouse is already deep in the magical world of the Christmas pantomime … and we’re only just into May.

The performance dates for panto 2014 were set and on sale last December as Robin Hood opened – we start working on it over a year in advance. The schools have been invited and over 9,000 children will be booing, hissing and cheering their way through the first ever Oxford Playhouse production of Beauty and the Beast. Varieties of ice cream are under considerat-ion, as is the balance of swirly wands and flashing tiaras. The creative team is coming together and debates are under way regarding what set and how many scene changes? Where to put the band this year? (The car park was apparently not a helpful suggestion!) How many characters? Who are the goodies, who are the baddies?

Children’s illustrator Korky Paul has sent in the first delightful ideas for the posters (always an exciting moment) and we wait, with bated breath, the arrival of the outline plot from Peter Duncan. Audition dates and locations are being set as the casting process begins. The young company auditions in September are almost booked up (contact the ticket office if you want to snap up one of the remaining places).

I have chaperones to contract and a wealth of paperwork to look forward to as we arrange performance licences for the 20 young people who will join the professional cast for the demanding rehearsals and performance schedule. On which note, have we secured a rehearsal space yet? Somehow, these questions and many more all get answered (usually around July, sometimes November) and we are ready to open our doors to the 37,000 panto-goers come December.

All this was running through my mind at 9am today and finally I thought of a creative task for the 10 work experience students: to devise a work pack for schools to use in the run-up to their panto visit containing games and exercises to get classes in the spirit of the show before they visit. During the work-experience week the students will first undertake research into the Beauty and the Beast fairytale — the first published version was by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve in 1740 — then they will need to consider the history of pantomime and the influence of Commedia dell’Arte.

Next they’ll start devising and testing the activities aimed at encouraging young school children, who may never have visited the theatre or panto before, to get to know the characters, plot and audience participation (knowing when to boo and hiss). Then construction of the pack itself begins, finding images, design layout, copy writing and proof-ing. Guided by our staff for the week, the students will work as a mini Playhouse team.

Hopefully they will have fun and enjoy contributing a little to the sparkling world of Panto (despite their time here probably being during the hottest week of the summer).