I was asked to be the MD (Musical Director) for our local theatre group's performance of the "Pompeii Panto" a few years ago - which meant choosing the songs, sorting out the musicians, arranging the music for the musicians, coaching the cast in singing the songs, and directing the music at each performance. Luckily, I'd retired from the day job because it was a huge amount of work. It started in late August with auditions and continued right up until performance time in early January, with rehearsals twice a week. Great fun. I'd been involved in playing for various musicals before but never done MD work until then.

I was given the freedom to choose the music, so went for the 1950s, a genre I knew very well. Getting a mixed cast - some of whom were great singers and some of whom could hardly hold a tune in a bucket - to get the songs right was a real challenge. However, as they say, it went all right on the night(s), and I received the fat fee of a bottle of Scotch for my trouble. I chose musicians who were friends of mine, whom I could trust musically because, as usual, the band get just two bites of doing the music completely before the performance: once at the technical rehearsal and again at the dress rehearsal.

I was lucky enough to catch Ian McKellen (name drop: we went to the same school) as Window Twankey in "Aladdin" - his first venture as Dame. He was good but, I have to say, not as good as some of the old-timers who'd been used to a career in Variety or Music-Hall. They have a spontaneity and a capacity for ad-libbing which straight actors don't usually have - I'm thinking of people like Roy Hudd, John Inman and Les Dawson, for example. One of the greatest Dames was the music-hall and cabaret star from the '30s and '40s, Douglas Byng, who lived in retirement in Brighton, and one of the best ones whom I saw in the 1950s was a northern comedian called Albert Modley, who lived near us in Bolton.

One thing I will say: Panto is an art, and not an easy one!