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IT'S PANTO TIME!

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At Baron Hardup’s, the Ugly Sisters, Impetiga and Scrofulina, are getting ready for Prince Charming’s Ball. Impetiga: That red top looks nice, goes with your eyes. Scrofulina: The prince will go weak at the sight of my dainty knees. Imp: It’s my blond curls that’ll turn his head. Scrof: 365° in disbelief! Imp: I can feel it in my bones. I’ll be a princess by morning. Scrof: More like a right mess knowing how you hit the bottle! It’s the morning after the ball and, at Baron Hardup’s, the Ugly Sisters are squabbling over Cinderella’s slipper. Impetiga: I’ll go first – I have such pretty little feet! Scrofulina: You’ll never get that on you big twit! Imp: I’ll take me sock off! Scrof: You’d need to chop your toes off more like! Imp: Oh me bunion! I’ll try the other foot! Scrof: But it’s a right shoe!
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That's the way to do it!

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Baby's got the colic Crocodile stole the lunch Judy's on the warpath And so is Mr Punch   Beadle, Hangman, Clown, Old Nick... They'll get a whacking with his stick And should the Social Services call... Punch is the boy to do them all! The soundtrack to the slideshow at the top is from a film about Brighton's Professor Glyn Edwards, Brighton's Punch and Judy man 
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The Grappling Game

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Fight fans! Are you ready for the grappling match of the millennium?! It's the undefeated champion, the masked menace, El Bruto! 'I will continue to whip everyone's asses until someone has the guts, skill or a MACHINE GUN to stop me!'  Meet the challenger – LA LUPA! She's fast, she's lean, she's a grappling machine! Let battle commence! La Lupa surprises El Bruto with a drop kick! El Bruto's knocked sideways! She knocks El Bruto off his feet with a forearm smash! El Bruto's down! She's giving El Bruto's foot a fearsome twisting!    La Lupa has found El Bruto's one weak spot – his inability to take pain. She flips him over onto his big belly. El Bruto's in big trouble!  'Not the mask! Not the mask!'   Is it all over for El Bruto?  Yes! The new champion La Lupa! She's five foot tw
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Sneezing Cats and Eggshell Witch Boats

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Sussex Superstitions If your cat sneezes once indoors, get it outside quick! Three indoor sneezes from a cat will bring the whole family down with colds. After eating an egg, break a hole in the bottom of the shell to stop witches putting to sea in it. A magpie seen on your left brings bad luck, unless you take off your hat and bow to it. These are just three of 195 ‘startling superstitions’ collected by Charlotte Latham, wife of the Vicar of Fittleworth, in 'Some West Sussex Superstitions Lingering in 1868'. Mrs Latham tried to find out the reasons for people’s beliefs. When she asked why people took their hats off to magpies, ‘they always answered that it was a bad bird, and knew more than it should do, and was always looking about and prying into other people's affairs.’ My favourite answer to such a ‘why’ question is a note in Dylan Thomas’s Collected Poems : ‘I read somewhere of a shepherd who, when asked why he made, from within fairy rings, ritual obs
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Pa and Ma Ubu

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Here’s our Archaeopteryxmas tableau for 2017         'The action which is about to begin takes place in Poland, that is to say, nowhere'         Alfred Jarry to the audience on the first night, 11 December 1896   Act 1 Scene 1. Pa Ubu, Ma Ubu.    PA UBU. Pshite!* MA UBU. Oh! that’s a fine thing. What a pig you are, Pa Ubu! PA UBU. Watch out I don’t kill you, Ma Ubu! MA UBU. It isn’t me you ought to kill, Pa Ubu, it’s someone else. *’Merdre’ in the French   PA UBU. Now by my green candle, I don’t understand. MA UBU. What! Pa Ubu, you’re content with your lot? PA UBU. Now by my green candle, pshite. Madam, certainly yes, I’m content. I could be content with less. After all, I’m Captain of Dragoons, Privy Councillor to King Wenceslas, Knight of the Red Eagle of Poland, and formerly King of Aragon. What more do you want?   MA U
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