The magic of the performance can carry all sorts of accents as I know from recent experience. Mum was in hospital over most of December and the first half of January and as a result was in for her birthday on the 30th of December. Every year I've taken her to a pantomime on it, oh yes I have, so I needed another plan to make it special for her. The original thought was was to ask someone from the cast to ring the hospital and give birthday salutations. It then occurred to me that it takes me over an hour to get through to her ward at times and they would surely give up after a few minutes if they were willing to undertake this task. So with a flash of divine stupidity worthy of our Holmfirth heroes I decided to *be* the person from Pantoland! I never dressed up you'll be delighted to know but I hid in a little alcove just before getting to her ward and get one of the delightful nurses to phone me and then come in saying they had a call from 'Simple Simon.' on the sole condition they could put me on loudspeaker so they could enjoy the experience as well. So I affected a deep Yorkshire accent, of sorts, and engaged in series of truly bad panto jokes. She is now thankfully back home and recovering well and I haven't had the heart to ruin the illusion as she has completely fallen for the whole routine despite my visit appearing only a few minutes after her call!
