Jordan Productions celebrates 30 years of panto

As a young jobbing actor in 1993, Chris Jordan persuaded his local theatre to let him put on its first professional pantomime, which he delivered with his six-week-old baby in the dressing room. Little did he know that, in 2024, his company, Jordan Productions, would be celebrating its 30th anniversary as one of the UK’s leading panto producers.

Marking this milestone, Jordan looks back on the company’s successes and challenges over the years.

It all began when Jordan and his wife staged a production of Dick Whittington at the Wyllyotts Theatre in Potters Bar.

“We had our six-week-old daughter in the dressing room. My mum made the costumes. My dad built the set and let me put half the show on his credit card. It was quite an interesting Christmas,” Jordan recalls.

From there, he slowly grew the company. In 2000, he became artistic director of Eastbourne Theatres and took on its panto.

“Now, 30 years later, we’ve got pantos at eight venues and we’re employing 200 people this Christmas,” he says.

But the company’s journey has not been without its challenges. Like the rest of the industry, Jordan Productions was hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Jordan recalls: “During the dreadful Omicron year in 2021, we lost one show entirely but we somehow managed to save our production in Chatham by creating a ‘subs bench’ of really talented performers who stepped in when four out of seven of the original principle cast members were struck down by the virus. Seeing all four covers, off the book, smashing it out the park to a full house against all the odds was a huge relief and one of my proudest moments.”

Another career highlight was the company’s first production of Peter Pan in Stevenage in in 2016: “It was my first Peter Pan and we had gone to town with some very ambitious ideas involving water fountains, explosions, ball pits that mermaids dive into and loads of performer flying. I never thought we would actually be able to deliver it all on stage. With the huge support of the theatre’s staff, my own team and everyone working so hard together, we pulled it off.”

“It was everything that, as a six-year-old at my first pantomime in Watford, I dreamed of seeing on a stage. I didn’t ever think I’d be responsible for that kind of spectacle,” Jordan says.

The producer believes pantomime is an integral “audience development tool”, because it is often the first experience that young people have of theatre.

“We need to bang the drum for panto as a genre because we have a real responsibility to encourage audiences of the future  to go and have a unique, live, theatrical and shared experience that can’t be replicated from a screen by the latest TikTok sensation.”

Jordan is eager to acknowledge the contribution to the company’s success of his “hugely supportive and very hard-working” team, as well as the support from Eastbourne Theatres.

This festive period, the company’s roster of shows includes Jack and the Beanstalk at the Princess Theatre in Torquay, Aladdin at the Palace Theatre in Newark, Cinderella at the Alive Corn Exchange in Kings Lynn, Snow White at Devonshire Park Theatre in Eastbourne, Beauty and the Beast at New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth, Jack and the Beanstalk at Central Theatre in Chatham and Peter Pan at Stevenage’s Gordon Craig Theatre.

And, to bring Jordan’s journey full circle, Jordan Productions is still producing panto at Wyllyotts Theatre – this year a production of Aladdin – back where it all began.

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