How I very nearly missed my cue in the panto

AS many of you will know I am now in pantomime (Aladdin) at Lowestoft in Suffolk. There is a scene where I sit on a laundry basket reading a newspaper and obviously the only one I was prepared to be seen with was the Daily Express.

So there I was pretending to be haughtily absorbed in news while a classic chase involving the police and the dame was going on around me when my eye fell on the letters page and I began to read in earnest, almost missing a cue as a result. You should not write such interesting letters.

The panto is as much fun as ever, with this year two drama students from Guildford among the cast. Mia Richards plays the princess and DeeArna McLean the spirit of the ring. Both are hugely talented with Mia singing and dancing in one of the lead

DON’T FORGET HIM

roles and DeeArna also acting as assistant stage manager and getting all the props in the right place at the right time.

Acting is a crowded profession and ability is no guarantee of success but I shall look out for those two in the future. Meanwhile it is a happy company, which counts for much when stories of divas and divisions percolate through from other shows up and down the country. SOMETIMES governments hope that news will just die down so we should not be content to let the Afghan interpreter Hafizullah Husseinkhel rot in a detention centre and then be quietly deported to Austria. I wrote about his case last week and it shames Britain.

How can ministers tuck into the Christmas turkey knowing that this is the way we quite deliberately treat those who put their own lives on the line for our boys? Mr Husseinkhel should be released immediately.