Blue Peter legend and East Sussex resident offers his online pantos this Christmas

Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk and Pantoland are now available. A family ticket for all three pantomimes is £15 which covers friends and families watching them together, and they can be viewed multiple times. There are also video packages available for schools, community groups and care homes. An activity pack is available for schools. You can book online at pantoonline.co.uk. Family ticket £10; family ticket, all three shows £15. Schools £200; school ticket, all shows £250. Groups £75; group ticket, all shows £100.

“I probably won’t do it every year,” Peter says, “but there is definitely interest and it's great interactive stuff enhanced with special effects and it's available for streaming for Christmas.”

And they're certainly not just of their time. There is an element of reference to the pandemic in the first one: “But the pantos have a certain timelessness. Some of the references are maybe a little bit in the past but they still work really well. They feel fresh and you can see all the endeavour. And actually it has all set me on the path to make other films perhaps.

“I was in the pantos. I played the dame and I co-directed and produced them, and I learned a lot of new skills through doing them that I want to carry on. I'm set on doing more films and maybe even another panto.

“It goes back to the dark days of the pandemic. Certainly that's when I got the idea to do the first one in my back garden. We started in a small way with a few actor friends and we made the film. And then just about the time when it all got a bit more tricky with the pandemic we had finished and we went into post-production. That was in 2020. It's about 15 to 20 actor friends, not all on the same day and we just about got through. Once we got a taste for that we took it to Everyman Cinema and they took it into the cinemas before they had to shut down. Other cinema chains took it on as well before they shut down. And then the following year the pandemic was still rumbling along and we made a second film, and we were selling to schools and care homes and to scouts and so on.”

In all, Peter and his colleagues made three pantos which are now available to enjoy this Christmas.

Since the pandemic Peter has moved to East Sussex, just a few miles from Rye: “I was conscious that I felt attached to Brighton where my parents used to do their pantos and summer seasons and I wanted to be close-ish to London but like a lot of people I've got very involved in climate stuff and just as you get older you get more reflective about who we are and what we're doing right now. I've come down here to build my greenhouse and raise beds and ponds and possibly make films on the little bit of land that we have got.

“So many things that I do relate to trying to protect our own little space. It's a bit better than the Blue Peter garden was! Though I did get very much into it with Percy Thrower in the 1980s!”

The key is regenerative agriculture and sustainability: “I think our species has genuinely got to change our ways. For all the language that is being chucked out of the big meetings and the COPS, you do wonder whether we are capable of really embracing it as individuals.”

Peter’s move was a definite decision to be proactive: “I was in Wandsworth and I had a lovely garden and a nice house, but already when we go up to London you're thinking ‘Aren’t there a lot of people!’ But it's a better quality of life here. I'm not sure that the pace changes. In fact I think there is more to do here than there was in London but you're watching people behave in different ways and doing different things. I'm looking after sheep, and there are cows out in that field and you see people being close to animals. I see pheasant. There are badgers and there are moles and I've got a lovely little bit of ancient woodland that I look after and that I want to protect. It has been a really good move.”