The Regent, Christchurch
51 High St, Christchurch BH23 1AS
Professional pantomime arrives at The Regent, Christchurch this Christmas as we welcome award winning Polka Dot Pantomimes to present a tale as old as time - BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.
Suitable for the whole family the show features spectacular scenery, glittering costumes, amazing special effects, toe tapping tunes and plenty of audience participation, as well as real panto pooches! This is family pantomime at it’s best so book your tickets now and be our guest for Dorset’s finest festive treat.
Programme
Polka Dot Pantomimes are delighted to welcome you to The Regent Theatre and this production of Beauty and the Beast. This is the first pantomime we have produced here and we hope that you will enjoy watching this beast of a fairytale as much as we have enjoyed producing it.
For the 2025/2026 season we are producing nine professional pantomimes in Spalding, Bolton, Grantham, Harpenden, Grays, Hastings,Bristol, Christchurch and Didcot. Our pantomimes are consistently of the highest standards and we are delighted that every year we get to work with exceptionally talented performers, wonderful theatre staff, dedicated and hard working backstage teams, and our amazing creative teams - all of who put 100% effort into making our shows accessible and successful! We also love working with our three teams of children’s chorus and our wonderful chaperones – we had over 100 young people attend the auditions and the chosen 24 amaze us every day!
Since 2005 we have produced professional productions of Aladdin, Jack & The Beanstalk, Peter Pan, Robin Hood, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Jungle Book, The Wizard of Oz, Rapunzel, Dick Whittington and Beauty and the Beast.
We are delighted to be producing professional pantomime at The Regent Theatre this year and would like to take this opportunity to thank you for supporting your local theatre – we appreciate you spending your time with us and choosing to watch this production.
THANK YOU!
From all of us at Polka Dot Pantomimes, we hope you enjoy this wonderful show and we would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2026!
History of Beauty and the Beast
Like Cinderella, the tale of Beauty and the Beast is one of the best-known stories in the world. The history of Beauty and the Beast is quite different from the other stories in the popular fairytale canon.
The earliest versions of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and many others are lost in the pre-Gutenberg era with just a few recorded versions hinting at elusive histories. Many scholars post that those tales began as folklore, passed from generation to generation, from storyteller to storyteller, until enterprising authors published them on rare occasions, capturing them on paper for us to read and enjoy centuries later.
Beauty and the Beast, on the other hand, did not start out strictly as folklore, although it incorporates folkloric elements. It has a discernible birth and history, beginning in 1740 with Madame Gabriel le-Suzanne de Villeneuve, a French writer influenced by the fairytales written by authors, such as Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy and Charles Perrault, in the French salons during the earlier part of the century.
Villeneuve's story did not remain exclusively hers, for it provided the building blocks for another writer, Madame Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, in 1757. While Villeneuve's primary audience was adults, Beaumont’s was children with a didactic message about good manners and behaviour as well as physical beauty. Ultimately, Beaumont greatly bridged and rewrote the tale, giving us the version so well recognised today, but her version wouldn't have existed without Villeneuve's original work.
In the end, Beauty and the Beast continues to be shared and retold to each new generation. New picture books, new novels, and new films appear on a regular basis, exploring the tale, some finding new meanings and subverting old ones while others cherish the original.
Our version of Beauty and the Beast is a spellbinding story of a selfish prince who is destined to spend the rest of his life hidden in his castle in the guise of a grotesque beast. Resourceful, the heroine Belle, our Beauty, rushes to the rescue with her madcap pals. Can our heroine save the day and learn to love the Beast?
We hope you find our version of this classic tale C'est Magnifique!
Principal Cast
BELLE - Jasmine Earl
Jasmine trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and has since performed in a variety of different projects, with recent credits including Cinderella (Hounslow Arts Centre), Taskmaster: the Live Experience (Dock X) and The Perfect Bite: a Knives Out Mystery (Gaucho).
Jasmine grew up in Poole, and in 2014 she performed alongside her Dad in a local production of Little Shop of Horrors as Audrey at The Regent Centre, Christchurch, so she is over the moon to be joining Polka Dot Pantomimes and returning to her roots, performing in this beautiful (and sentimental) theatre again in Beauty and the Beast!
PRINCE LUCIAN - Will Day
Will lives local to the Southampton area on the South Coast. He recently graduated from the Chichester Conservatoire with a BA Musical Theatre (Music) Honours Degree. He is a trained High Baritone and loves performing in comedy style productions in particular. He has previously played Lord Farquard in a production of Shrek whilst training and loved every moment. Therefore, joining the cast of Beauty & the Beast Pantomime is an excellent fit for him!
DOLLY DOUGHNUT - Keith Myers
Keith has appeared in more than 20 pantomimes all around the UK and played nearly all the leading roles, some of them several times. These include the Aladdin characters: Ping, the Chinese Policeman opposite the legendary Larry Grayson, the Genie of the Lamp with Juliette Caplan and Robert Fyfe from Last of the Summer Wine, and Widow Twankey in Welwyn Garden City and Clacton. Other roles include The Woodsman opposite 3-2-1’s Ted Rogers in Snow White, The Bad Robber in Babes in The Wood opposite Eastenders star Nick Berry in Hastings, Dame Dolly in Beauty and The Beast with comedian Bobby Dazzler in Welwyn, Belle’s Father in Beauty and the Beast opposite Neighbours star Sarah Vandenberg in Halifax, Baron Hardup in Cinderella and Alderman Fitzwarrren in Dick Whittington with Emmerdale regular and comic Bobby Knutt in Chesterfield, and Dame Dotty in Snow White with Carry On and James Bond star Valerie Leon in Dunfermline. He has also played Dame Nancy in Beauty and the Beast in Portsmouth, Dame Dolly in Jack and The Beanstalk in Welwyn, and King Rat in Dick Whittington, and Ugly Sister in Cinderella, both in Margate. His very first panto role was Neptune in Robinson Crusoe with Hi-De-Hi star Barry Howard in Swansea. His last one was playing Sarah the Cook in Dick Whittington in Potters Bar.
This is his debut at the lovely Regent Theatre, and he is delighted to be playing Dame Dolly in Beauty and the Beast!
MAURICE - Simon Rawlings
Simon is from Bournemouth, trained at Mountview Theatre School in London.
Acting work since has taken him from West End to Far East…and Bognor Regis! It includes national tours and West End productions of ‘Allo ‘Allo as Herr Flick, alongside the original cast (including Summer Season at the Pier Theatre, Bournemouth); Don’t Dress for Dinner, The Demon Headmaster, and Whose Life is it Anyway? Also, The Great British Musicals (Royal Albert Hall), French Paste (Shaw Theatre, London), Enitan’s Game (Punchdrunk Enrichment), The Merry Widow (Opera Holland Park), Overture (Lyric, Hammersmith), A Christmas Carol (English Theatre of Stockholm), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (Newpalm tour), Pickwick and Salad Days (Gordon Craig, Stevenage), Beauty & the Beast (Spillers), Party to the Divorce (Edinburgh), They’re Playing Our Song (Middle & Far East Tour) and Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (Dover Castle). Simon also played Fleshcreep in Weymouth Pavilion’s Jack & the Beanstalk and Baron Hardup in the award-winning Cinderella at The Lighthouse, Poole. T.V. and Film includes The Ultimate Truth, Crimewatch UK, Rift, This Morning, Carnal Knowledge, Motoring Wheel Nuts, Look and Read, and commercials for BT, Boots, Summer Dream Ticket and Butcher’s Dog Food!
Directing credits include the major revival of A Chorus Line at the Lowry, Salford (starring Jamie Lomas and Drew McOnie); The Wizard of Oz (starring Judy Garland’s daughter, Lorna Luft) at the Wales Millennium Centre and the Lowry; the new musical Pilgrim, which he also co-wrote; and numerous pantomimes including Dick Whittington at the Pavilion Theatre, Bournemouth and the Festival Theatre, Malvern; Peter Pan and Cinderella at the Blackpool Grand; Aladdin at the Regent Theatre, Stoke and the Lowry, Salford; and Snow White at the Sunderland Empire. Simon was also Resident Children’s Director for the national tour of The Demon Headmaster and Assistant Director (to Matthew White) on the national tour of Carousel. Other productions include Thoroughly Modern Millie, Guys & Dolls, Me & My Girl, Bye Bye Birdie, Orpheus in the Underworld, Dry Rot, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Follies, Little Me, Our House, Some Like it Hot, 13, Footloose! and Made in Dagenham.
Simon is also Director of Act One Drama, The Bull Theatre Players and an acting tutor at the Sylvia Young Theatre School, as well as being married to the broadcaster, Kate Weston.
FRENCH FRANC - Charles M Duke
Credits: Sir Elton John in ‘Are You Ready For Love’ (UK & International Tour); Muddles in ‘Snow White’ (Thameside Theatre, Grays); Peter Pan in ‘Peter Pan & the Revenge of Captain Hook’ (Drill, Lincoln); ‘Lost The Plot: An Improvised Musical’ (Vanguard Theatre, London); Elton John in ‘I’m Still Standing: The Elton John Story’ (UK Tour & Marella Cruises); Presto in ‘Sleeping Beauty’ (Grange Theatre, Northwich); Tin Man in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ (New Theatre Royal, Lincoln); Scarecrow (also Director) in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ (Crescent Theatre, Birmingham); Muddles (also Director) in ‘Rapunzel’ (Tour); Simple Simon in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ (Century Theatre, Coalville); Pinocchio in ‘Pinocchio’ (Amphitheatre, Basingstoke); Lead Male Vocalist in ‘Believe – The Cher Songbook’ (UK Tour); Bob Gaudio in ‘Bye Bye Baby’ (UK Tour).
Charles is thrilled to return to Polka Dot Pantomimes for a 2nd consecutive year, especially here at The Regent Centre.
GRIMALKIN - Chloe Hughes
Chloe-Louisa trained at Leaf Academy, Stagewise School for the Performing Arts and then later, Urdang London. After completing her training Chloe has enjoyed a varied career in theatre and can proudly say that she is a three times Musical Theatre World Champion! Credits include: Bowie Experience (UK Tour); Ann Reilly (42nd Street); Mimi (Skyline Gang); Ensemble cover Goldilocks & Mummy Bear (Goldilocks pantomime); Dancer/Illusion Assistant (Stephen Mulherns ‘Spellbound’); New Musicals UK (The Other Palace); Winnie the Witch (Routine Riots); Dancer (Walls Ice Cream 100 year anniversary advert.); Wicked Witch of the West (Wizard of Oz); ‘Black Cherry Improv Squad’ (UK Tour); Genie (Aladdin Pantomime); Wicked Witch (Snow White Pantomime); Choreography credits: ‘Defying Gravity West End Women’ (Adelphi/UK Tour); ‘The Rat Pack Live in Concert’ (UK Tour); ‘Scrooge’ (Earl Carpenters Ginger Boy Productions) ‘Cats’ (Highcliffe Charity Players); ‘Seussical’ (Stagewise School for the performing arts); Prompt Corner Festival routines, ‘Musical Madness’ (Barton Court Studios) Chloe also proudly teaches and choreographs for Prompt Corner Academy of Dance, Stagewise School for the Performing Arts, Barton Court Studios, and Stagecoach.
When not performing, coaching or on a mat teaching Pilates,you can find Chloe with her laptop working as Sales coordinator at ShowPlanr. Chloe can't wait to be part of Showplanr's exciting new show 'Let's Pop!' where you will find her behind the decks hosting and DJ'ing pop-tastic tunes in this brand new event coming to a venue near you!
Chloe is thrilled to be joining the Polka Dot family in her debut right here at the Regent Centre, a theatre that holds a huge place in her heart having performed here as a child and then as 'Narrator' in Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat, 'Silly Sally' in Jack and the Beanstalk, and 'Elsa' in Once Upon a Princess (UK Tour). She is super excited to be playing Grimalkin, and although she may seem mean...she promises she’s really nice in real life!
Finally, Chloe would like to thank her family and friends for their unwavering support, and hopes that you all enjoy the show! :)
FAIRY FABULOUS - Kirstie McAnulty
Kirstie trained in Musical Theatre at The Wenn Stage School in Essex and has since gone on to co-run the school. She then went on to study Drama, Musical Theatre and Stage Management.
Kirstie’s numerous Stage credits include a UK tour as Sadie Tara Thompson in Caviar and Chips – a one-woman show by the award-winning writer, Matthew Knowles, Necile in Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, Lead Vocalist for Viva Productions (UK Tour), Brat in Whistle Down The Wind – both in the West End (Really Useful) and UK tour (Bill Kenwright), Alice in Dick Whittington, Pinocchio
(U/S Pinocchio) – (Newpalm), Melinda in Inherit The Wind (Kings Head), Laura & U/S Gina/Harriet/Ellie in the UK tour of The Extra Factor (Theatre Productions).
Most recently Kirstie has been focusing on her best production – her children Mickey & Melody, but in between these two arrivals, she made a brief reappearance in the pilot episode of the BBC series “All Together Now” which she won. Kirstie is thrilled to be back on stage - joining Polka Dot as a performer for the first time – having been Deputy Stage Manager for them in previous years. Kirstie would like to thank her husband Andy and Mum & Dad for making this opportunity possible
and for all their support.
Merry Christmas Everyone xx
Chorus (Red Team)
GRACE LLOYD
TAYLOR VERNON-MULRYAN
CAITLYN PRPICH
ELLA SHAKESPEARE
ALEXA BUSH
LYRA MERRYWEATHER SPONG
MOLLY O'BRYAN
LUCY HARTSHORNE
Chorus (Blue Team)
ABIGAIL BATTISON
ISLA EATON
ELLE CAMPBELL
PHOEBI CURTAIN
AMELIA BLEWITT
ZARA SHARP
ELISE PETTIFER
MATILDA WORSDALE
Chorus (Yellow Team)
VANESSA BOND
LILY WOODS
OLLIE VYDRA
HOLLIE RICKETT DE CARVALHO
SONNY HILSON SHAW
BRAELYN TILLER
HOLLIE WILLIAMS
ISABELLA HALL
Scene Synopsis
ACT ONE
Prologue – THE STORY SO FAR!
Scene 1 - THE VILLAGE SQUARE
Scene 2 – ROAD TO CASTLE
Scene 3 – BELLE’S HOME
Scene 4 – ROAD TO CASTLE
Scene 5 – THE BEAST’S GARDENS
ACT TWO
Scene 1 – STORY SO FAR
Scene 2 – THE CASTLE BALLROOM
Scene 3 – THE SPOOKY WOODS
Scene 4 – GRIMALKIN’S LAIR
Scene 5 – FAIRYLAND
Scene 6 – THE CASTLE BALLROOM
Scene 7 – SONG SHEET
Scene 8 - THE CASTLE BALLROOM
Song List
ACT ONE
Song 1 – OVERTURE & PROLOGUE
Song 2 – DON’T STOP ME NOW
Song 3 – SHINE YOUR WAY
Song 4 – THANK YOU FOR BEING A FRIEND
Song 5 – SAPPHIRE
Song 6 – WELCOME TO THE CASTLE
ACT 2
Song 7 – ENTERACTE
Song 8 – IF I WERE NOT UPON THE STAGE
Song 9 – MY UNIVERSE
Song 10– MY UNIVERSE REPRISE
Song 11 – PINK PONY CLUB GHOST GAG
Song 12 – ABRACADABRA
Song 13 – WHEN YOU BELIEVE
Song 14 – THE TRANSFORMATION
Song 15 – GOLDEN
Song 16 – MUSIC MAN - SONG SHEET
Song 17 – APT BOWS
Song 18 – GOLDEN REPRISE
Production Team
DIRECTOR: ALEX FORSTER
CHOREOGRAPHER: ALEX FORSTER
WRITERS: DARREN MADDISON, DARREN O'SULLIVAN, LUKE ATTWOOD AND ALISTER WILMOTT
MUSICAL SUPERVISOR: STEVE HESSION
VOCAL COACH: ALEX FORSTER
SCENERY: PAUL LAZELL
COSTUMES: POLKA DOT PANTOMIMES
COMPANY STAGE MANAGER: CONOR LAVELLE
STAGE MANAGER: MACUSHLA MCGOWN
DEPUTY STAGE MANAGER: CONOR LAVELLE
ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER: REBECCA AIKEN
ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER: LILY ROAKE
DOG HANDLER FOR PIXIE: DANIELLA CHAPMAN
Polka Dot Pantomimes
COMPANY DIRECTOR: DARREN MADDISON
PRODUCER: CATHERINE MAYER
TECHNICAL PRODUCER: BEV A.M. PASKELL
FINANCE: HELEN WRIGHT
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: TONY MAYER
ADMINISTRATOR: ELAINE BARRON-CLARK
HEAD OF CASTING: LUKE ATTWOOD
SOCIAL MEDIA: JOEY RODAK
MUSICAL SUPERVISOR: STEVE HESSION
