Pantomime is a strange branch of writing. You are essentially writing a comedy for people who already know the punchline. For in all honesty, if the story delves too far into the unknown, or deviates too wildly, it does not go down well with the audience. The trick, then, is to throw in many smaller subplots to flesh out the characters as much as possible – something the audience will absorb and look forward to the answer, all working to enhance the main and beloved plot line.

Pantomime relies almost wholly on pace and timing. It is a huge jigsaw puzzle to assemble, ticking off a surprising number of thematic boxes that you wouldn’t assume a pantomime script includes. Besides the obvious ones of love, friendship and loyalty, there are the darker themes of guilt, loss, sacrifice, redemption and death.

Death. Death? For a comedy, a pantomime is awfully dark. It is seen as a victory, a chance to celebrate, when the ‘baddy’ is killed. There is no mourning, no regret. They are simply killed and everything is marvellous again. There is something quite sinister in that thought. Redemption is a better end, surely? When the ‘baddy’ is given a second chance? But how many fairy tales choose that option? The good win. The evil die.

It throws up important questions, ones that are raised in a format that may well be a child’s first experience of the theatre: What is the nature of evil? What is true friendship? Does magic solve everything?

Really – does magic solve everything? On the surface, yes. The ball gowns are made, the pumpkins are conjured, the cat talks, the lamp grants wishes in the guise of its genie. But once you look deeper, the consequences of magic are somewhat catastrophic: Cinderella is imprisoned upon her return from the Ball, the cat almost drowns whilst travelling across the seas, and the lamp allows the evil sorcerer to reign supreme. The only way these events can be untangled is if the good, kind friend finds something within themselves to overcome the obstacles: Buttons must push aside his jealousy and sacrifice his happiness to rescue Cinderella; Dick Whittington must disregard his notion of riches and instead fight for what he believes in; Aladdin must learn the qualities of loving another more than he loves himself. Magic – it turns out – is the destruction. Kindness is the force that wins the day.

Three cheers, then, to the existence of the pantomime.

A story that always seems to end with a rhyme.