PHARMACIES

*Lloyds, Heol y Nant and High Street. S R Bailey, The Pharmacy. S R Bailey, Station Road. Well, Gwillym Road. Lloyds Pharmacy, Strawberry Place, 8.30am-6pm. *Huw S Rees, The Pharmacy. The Pharmacy. Sainsbury’s Instore Pharmacy, Quay Parade, 8am-10pm; Tesco Fforestfach, 8am-8pm. *W A & J B Lewis, 697 Llangyfelach Road, 5.30-6.15pm. *Well, 55 Uplands Crescent, 5.30-7pm. C Jones, 43 Gurnosfa, Gurnos, Lower Cwmtwrch. *Gravelle Pharmacy.

*C I Hopkins, Bridge Pharmacy. LAST night the curtain fell on this year’s Grand Theatre for the final time as panto season came to close.

Over the past few weeks I’ve changed costume 561 times, had 102 make-up sessions, handed over 204 goodie bags to the children who have come on stage for the traditional panto song sheet The Baby Shark Song . . . I’ve sung “Baby Shark doo doo doo doo doo” no less than 104 times!

I have no idea how many ice creams, programmes and flashing light panto toys have been sold but the four weeks that panto runs at the Grand is vital to the theatre as it represents its busiest time of the year.

This year was my 21st panto at the Grand and I can’t believe that next year’s show is already on sale with posters for Peter Pan all over the Grand’s front of house area.

Twenty-one may seem like a lot and it’s something I’m very proud of but in comparison to some I’m in my early days.

After hundreds of frock changes, decades of in-jokes, countless sing-alongs and not a single identifiable plot, actor Berwick Kaler is to retire as York Theatre Royal’s resident panto dame.

He will hang up his trademark ginger wig after this year’s show, The Grand Old Dame of York, which is his 40th at the theatre and his 50th pantomime in total when this year’s panto closes on February 2.

Northern Ireland’s panto dame May Mcfettridge is celebrating 28 years starring in pantomimes in Belfast’s Grand Opera House.

Whatever your thoughts on its place in the theatrical calendar, the annual pantomime is big business. If it wasn’t making money for its producers,