This pantomime has been designed for 10 speaking parts with ensemble parts for dancers. It has also been designed for 2 acts of roughly 35 minutes each, however it could be performed in just above an hour without an interval. Contact me for free resources such as backing tracks, sound effects and other projections that may help your production! SAMPLE SCENE WITCHFINDER Don’t lie to us, peasant! We have heard stories that you are an all powerful sorceress who can spin straw into gold! JEN What idiot told you that? WIDOW TWANKEY (clearing throat, coughing) Look, I might have told one or two fibs about you to this guy I met…? JEN What fibs? What guy? WIDOW TWANKEY Let me tell you a tale… I remember it like it was yesterday… because it was yesterday… Romantic tango music. GAVIN THE SOLIDER sits down at a table with a candle and wine bottles. Everyone else in the Queens court stays in freezeframe. GAVIN is really PRINCE CHARMING in disguise, with a bad moustache. WIDOW TWANKEY I met this guy on tinder… I’m not normally one for computer dating, last time I tried it I caught a virus! But then I swiped right on Gavin… Oh dreamy, Gavin. Big strong, musclebound Gavin, a soldier in the queens army. How could I resist? He swept me off my feet… which was hard because I’m a size 23. He wined and dined me, but then he started asking all kinds of questions, and I don’t know why, but I just kept on lying and lying to impress him! WIDOW TWANKEY sits down at the table as we go into a flashback. GAV You are so beautiful, my love… WIDOW TWANKEY I bet you say that to all of the girls! GAV Well it’s no good me saying it to all of the boys! So tell me, my love, what do you do for a living? WIDOW TWANKEY I’m a… best selling author… super rich! Rolling in cash! GAV Oh really? What books have you written? WIDOW TWANKEY Er… lots… I’ve written… Macbeth… Oliver Twist… Harry Potter… GAV What about J.K Rowling? WIDOW TWANKEY Yes I wrote that one too! I really am fabulously rich and famous, and my daughter is super intelligent too. And talented! So talented! She can hold her breath for 3 days! She goes scuba diving in volcanoes. And she can spin straw into gold… JEN MUM! Why did you tell him that? WIDOW TWANKEY What was I supposed to tell him? You failed all your GCSEs, you can’t spell cat and we’re so poor when we go to KFC we lick other peoples fingers? I was trying to bag me a good husband! WITCHFINDER May I suggest trial by ordeal, your majesty? We must conduct a witch test to discover the truth. The accused should be taken to a prison cell, and made to spin straw into gold! If she does this, then she is a witch! And she shall be burned at the stake! JEN No! You can’t burn me at the steak… I’m a vegan!

An original comedy pantomime of “Jack and the Beanstalk”, with humour designed for secondary school age students (but nothing too cheeky!) It includes speaking parts for at least 13 actors, with suggested but optional songs. Feel free to adapt any way you like! SAMPLE: WIDOW TWANKY Oh, no cheers for me then? I scrub my fingers to the bone, 34 hours a day, 8 days week and yet who gets top billing on all the posters, my useless layabout son, Jack! JACK Did somebody call? Hello boys and girls! Cmon, you can do better than that, we’ve got 3 hours of this to get through and if you carry on like that it’s going to be a long night. I’ll go off stage and when I return, I want you to shout “Hi Jack!” (leaves – everyone shouts Hi Jack!) That was brilliant, boys and girls! Just don’t shout that when you’re on a plane, will you? WIDOW TWANKY When you have quite finished!!! What are you doing here anyway?, You interrupted my opening speech, I was just telling the boys and girls what a useless disappointment of a son you are. JACK Mum, I keep telling you, Jack is short for Jaqueline! I’m not your son, I’m your daughter! I’m a girl! WIDOW TWANKY (to audience) Sadly, I must admit it’s true. My only child, and it’s a girl. All I wanted was a strong son, a 6 foot tall, hard working son who could look after me in my old age, and look what I got. Typical, everything I get always has something missing. She was a disappointment in every way. Even as a baby, she was hideous. I mean, think hard, have you ever seen an ugly baby, really? They are always so cute and beautiful. Not her. She was so ugly I had to buy shutters for the pram. I had to have “This Way Up” on her bib to save confusion. My poor mother told me to just put a paper bag over her head. In the end I put 3 on it , just in case the other 2 fell off. She was so ugly when she played in her sandpit, the cat kept on trying to bury her!