Chichester actress nominated for top panto award for Bognor performance

Chichester-based actress Vicky Edwards has been announced as a nominee for a prestigious Pantomime Award.
Vicky Edwards (in orange) and co-star Katie Bennett. Photo credit your event photographyVicky Edwards (in orange) and co-star Katie Bennett. Photo credit your event photography
Vicky Edwards (in orange) and co-star Katie Bennett. Photo credit your event photography

Vicky played Queen Dafty in Jack and the Beanstalk over Christmas in The Alexandra Theatre at Bognor’s Regis Centre.

While many theatres had to cancel performances of their pantomimes due to Covid-19 outbreaks, The Alexandra Theatre was delighted to complete a full run.

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Now Vicky has given them another reason to celebrate. She has been nominated in the category of Best Supporting Artist.

“I have been lucky enough to be invited back regularly for panto in Bognor Regis, which is always a joy.

“This year, with Covid still very much part of the landscape, things were tricky, but we managed to get through the whole run. That in itself was cause enough for celebration, but to be nominated for such a fantastic award too is just wonderful.”

Run by the UK Pantomime Association, which “explores, shares and celebrates pantomime by investigating the genre’s rich past, engaging with contemporary practice and inspire the future”, the competition saw 46 judges travel the length and breadth of the country, seeing pantomimes all over the UK and making nominations for each award based on a set of criteria developed in collaboration with industry experts.

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Paying tribute to her fellow cast members, to producers Spillers Pantomimes and to all the staff at the theatre, Vicky added: “The collective effort that went into ensuring that the Bognor panto went ahead this year was herculean.

“It’s such a much-loved part of Christmas for many families and we all worked together to make sure that it happened. Cast, crew, theatre staff and volunteers – there wasn’t an inch of the building, or a person working in it, that wasn’t sanitised, and we all took great care to reduce contact with people outside of our panto bubble.”

And with the arts having been especially badly impacted by the pandemic, the return of The Pantomime Awards was something that Vicky feels certain that panto casts all over the country were happy to see.

“As well as being a celebration of such a well-loved art form, knowing that the awards were returning gave us hope that some sort of normality was returning too. It felt reassuring at a time when we were all still holding our breath a bit.”

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The awards ceremony will take place in London’s West End in April, hosted by The UK Pantomime Association in association with Butlin’s. Revealing the winners will serial pantomime dame, Christopher Biggins.

“The competition is fearsome but, whether I come away with a trophy or not, it feels like we have won already just by dint of getting our fantastic show on and making it all the way through the run,” said Vicky, who when she isn’t doing panto is a wedding, funeral and naming celebrant and who also writes the Observer’s Vicky Meets feature.

“I love that I can combine writing, panto and my work as a celebrant. At heart, all three are about connecting with people and telling stories, and that’s what makes the world go around for me.”

Executive producer of Jack and the Beanstalk, chairman of Arun Arts Hazel Latus said: “We are all delighted that Vicky has been nominated for an award – she was amazing.”

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