Saturday Live Panto
On 3 December Saturday Live has a pantomime-themed programme and we’d like to invite Saturday Live listeners to get involved.
If you would like a starring role in the Saturday Live mini-panto you can record the script on your own or with friends. You can record one or two characters, or the whole thing!
You can record it on your mobile phone, and email an audio file to us at [email protected]
There are no age restrictions, but under 18s will need parental consent.
The team here will then select a number of contributions to include in the final panto. There is no selection criteria to fulfil, as the aim is to reflect the widest possible diversity of our Saturday audience.
We’ll choose the ones that inspire us. Please include your contact details and we’ll let you know beforehand if you make the final cut.
The final panto will be broadcast on Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4 on 3 December, and will then be available on the website and as a podcast and will be shared on Facebook and Twitter.
Cinderella
by Alan McHugh
Setting: The Boudoir of the Ugly Sisters
Music: intro
Continuity: Hello, everybody… welcome to our pantomime. You join us the morning after the Royal Ball, where Prince Charming and Cinderella fell in love. However, on the stroke of midnight, Cinderella’s beautiful ballgown disappeared and she had to flee the palace, dressed in rags.
Music: sad underscore.
Cinderella: Oh, how I wish I was still at the ball. One moment I was dancing with the Prince, and the next it was midnight, and all over… just as my Fairy Godmother said.
Uglies: (Off) Cinderella!
Music: Evil sting: Dum-Dum-Duuuuum!
Cinderella: Oh no! It’s my wicked step-sisters… Sadista and Demonica. They don’t know it was me at the ball.
Demonica: (Shouts off) No! I keep telling you - you’ve got it wrong!
Sadista: Now, for the last time, go away!
Sfx: door slam.
Cinderella: Who was that?
Demonica: Jenni Murray. She heard there was a panto and asked if we were looking for a dame.
Cinderella: Did you have a nice time at the ball last night?
Sadista: We did not! We got stuck with Lord Melvyn…
Demonica: … bragging on and on about ‘In Our Time.’
Sadista: After ten minutes of that, he was Out Of Time!
Cinderella: Prince Charming is coming today. I have to try on the slipper.
Sadista: You? You weren’t even at the ball.
Cinderella: I was. The Prince and I danced all night, and we’re in love.
The Uglies gasp in horror.
Sadista: Well, in that case you should look your very best for the Prince. We’ll lend you one of our ballgowns.
Cinderella: You will? Oh, thank you so much.
Demonica: They’re kept under lock and key in our walk-in wardrobe.
Sfx: key turning in a lock. A door creaking open.
Cinderella: That’s not the wardrobe!
Sadista: No! It’s the archives cupboard in the basement.
Demonica: In you go!
Cinderella screams.
Sfx: door slams shut. Key turning in the lock.
We hear snoring.
The snoring stops, and Continuity wakens and speaks.
Continuity: Ah yes… where were we? Sleeping Beauty?
Uglies: Cinderella!
Sadista: For an extra fiver, we could have got James Naughtie.
Continuity: Just then, Prince Charming arrived.
Music: Regal Fanfare.
Prince: Ladies, allow me to introduce my royal retinue. I have with me…
Lord C: The Lord Chamberlain.
Maid: The Maid of Honour.
Lady: The Lady In Waiting.
Cook: The cook.
Coachman: The coachman.
Footman: And the footman.
Lord C: Otherwise known as the chiropodist.
Prince: We have searched the entire kingdom, and have found no-one whose foot fits the slipper.
Sadista: Don’t worry! It’ll fit me.
Demonica: It will fit me!
Footman: It’ll never fit you!
Demonica: Me first! My foot could grace anything from the hundred metres to the marathon.
Maid: Yes, you have the finest athlete’s foot I have ever seen.
The Prince struggles to fit the slipper on Demonica’s foot. (sound fx grunting)
Prince: It doesn’t fit.
Sadista: My turn! My turn!
Again, the Prince struggles to fit the slipper on Sadista’s foot. (more f/x)
Prince: It doesn’t fit this one either.
Coachman: What now, your highness?
Snoring from Continuity Announcer.
Prince: We’ll have to call it a day if Continuity doesn’t snap to it.
Continuity Announcer snaps out of his snoring, and speaks.
Continuity: Ah yes…where were we? Aladdin?
All: Cinderella!
Continuity: Just then, Cinderella’s best friend, Buttons, rushed in.
Buttons: Your highness! You can’t leave!
Prince: Who are you?
Buttons: I’m Buttons!
Prince: Why are you called Buttons?
Buttons: It’s what the BBC pay me.
Sadista: Ignore him, your highness. He’s not important.
Buttons: Oh but there were important guests at the ball last night.
Prince: You mean John Humphreys and the Today team?
Lord C: They’d come straight from the office Christmas Party. We weren’t convinced it was them.
Lady: But John Humphreys said he’d prove it by asking them some current affairs questions.
Mastermind sting.
Maid: He asked Justin Webb… what is the Capital of Poland?
Buttons: He said P.
A woman giggles.
Cook: Then he said to Nick Robinson… name two days of the week beginning with T.
Buttons: Nick said… today and tomorrow.
More giggles
Coachman: Sarah Montague was best. He asked her… what’s the difference between people from Dubai and people from Abu Dhabi?
Buttons: And she said… people from Dubai don’t like The Flintstones, and people from Abu-Dhabi-do!
Hysterical giggles.
Prince: Has somebody been inhaling laughing gas?
Cook: Don’t worry - it’s just Aasmah Mir.
Prince: Enough! Buttons - what do you want?
Buttons: Your highness! You have to let Cinderella try on the slipper. She was the girl at the ball.
Prince: Well, where is she?
Buttons: Sadista and Demonica will know.
Uglies: Oh no, we don’t!
All: Oh yes, you do!
Uglies: Oh no, we don’t!
All: Oh yes, you do!
Buttons: Wait! Cinders’ Fairy Godmother will know what to do!
We hear snoring…
Prince: Continuity!
The snoring stops, then Continuity speaks…
Continuity: You must excuse me…I nodded off listening to the Shipping Forecast
Where were we… Jack And The Beanstalk?
All: Cinderella!
Continuity: Just then… as if by magic, the Fairy Godmother appeared.
Music: magical tinkle.
Maid: Knock me down with a feather!
Fairy: I’m Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother. It’s my job to make sure her dreams come true, because her destiny has been written in the stars.
Buttons: I heard about it on Cosmic Quest.
Prince: But nobody knows where she is.
Fairy: My second sight tells me she is locked in the archives cupboard.
Buttons: I’ll open it!
Sfx: a doorknob rattling.
Buttons: It’s locked!
Fairy: Who needs a key when you’ve got a magic wand? Stand back!
Abracadabra, Abracadee
The door will open, on the count of three.
All: One, two three…
Magical sfx… and a bang.
Lord C: Gordon Bennet!
Buttons: No! It’s Cinders actually.
Cinderella: Sadista and Demonica locked me up so I wouldn’t meet the Prince.
Fairy: And now, to prove that Cinderella was the girl at the ball. Your highness, perhaps you’d like to try the slipper on Cinderella.
Prince: It fits!
Footman: I don’t believe it. (Meldrew)
Cinderella: Thank you, Buttons. Thank you, Fairy Godmother. Thank you, your highness… thank you…
Theme music to Thank You section.
Fairy: And now, what should do with Sadista and Demonica?
Prince: They will be handed over to the most evil…
Lord C: Hateful…
Cook: Spiteful…
Coachman: Nasty…
Footman: Wicked…
Maid: Pitiless…
Lady: Merciless man to have ever stalked this earth, who will take them to his torture chamber.
Sadista: Freddy Kruger?
Demonica: Hannibal Lecter?
Buttons: Lord Voldemort?
Prince: No! Rob Titchener!
Archers sting.
Rob/Timothy: This way to Ambridge, ladies.
The Uglies scream and run away, their screams receding into the distance.
Prince: Guards! After them!
Guards’ footsteps recede into the distance.
Buttons: (Sings) So long, farewell, auf weidersen, goodbye-ee.
Lord C: Is that one of their Inheritance Tracks?
Buttons: Yes! And their second one would be… (Sings) Man, I feel like a woman.
Fairy: Your highness… you now have something very important to do.
Music: romantic underscore.
Prince: Cinderella… will you be my bride and Princess?
Cinderella: Yes. I’d love to.
Everyone cheers.
Fairy: And to celebrate, let’s break open the biscuit tin.
Buttons: This one’s for you, Cinders. Now that you’re a Princess, you’ll be Hobnobbing with royalty.
Fairy: And for the royal wedding, I’ll definitely be putting on The Ritz.
Buttons: And we have the very man to perform the ceremony – the Reverend Richard Coles.
Coachman: Who would have thunk it?
Prince: But what if the bride is late? He’ll have to be able to keep talking so the congregation don’t get bored.
Fairy: Don’t worry. Richard can keep talking until…
Buttons: The cows come home?
Fairy: No. ‘Til the pips.
Sfx: BBC pips.
Footman: And after being on Masterchef, he can cook the wedding feast.
Maid: Wonderful! So, if Richard’s cooking, what would you like?
Lady: Life insurance!
Buttons: His band can also supply the music for the reception. I have his card here. It says… ‘Consequent to the ceremonialisation of the solemnity of any regal nuptiality, one may gratify and satisfy one’s auricle cavities with conviviality and jollification, courtesy of a sonically aural and jubilationary experience whose creation and deliverance shall be the responsibility of Communard Coles.’
Lord C: I’m quite gobsmacked!
Fairy: All right. It’s time to wind this up…
We hear the Continuity Announcer snoring, then speak…
Continuity: Where were we? Ah yes… as we reach the end of Snow White -
All: CINDERELLA!
Prince: Who hired him anyway?
Buttons: We’ve got no choice – he’s the Director General!
Fairy: Now, let us sing and party, let us dance the night away
Good has won, the time has come for Cinders’ wedding day
My work down here is almost done, when I hear lovers’ laughter
I know that Cinders’ life will now be Happy Ever After!
Everyone cheers.
Closing music.
THE END
