Jason Manford, Keala Settle, Carrie Hope Fletcher and Chelsea Hall get set for the glitter and gags of festive season Panto was my first experience of going to the theatre. At school in south Manchester, there were free tickets for kids from underprivileged backgrounds. I must have been 10 or 11 and I thought theatre really wasn't for me. It was a stuffy place where people went to see Shakespeare or Chekhov, stroked …
