Are modern sports stars still cut out for pantomime season? Oh yes they are | Emma John
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Strictly Come Dancing has hit participation but the gymnast Louis Smith is still flying the flag for sporting heroes on stage. Merry Betwixtmas, everybody! I’ve a great fondness for this final stretch of December, the weird dead time when Boxing Day obligations to extended family have been fulfilled, and the new year’s party still seems impossibly far in the future. It’s a truly philosophical period, raising questions of mortality, renewal and resolution, and of how long trifle can be left open before it goes off. It’s good for a couple more days, right?.
![[Emma John]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2017/10/06/Emma-John,-R.png?width=180&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
You don’t want to go back to work, but you’re also not exactly sure what to do with yourself. Which is, doubtless, why panto exists. This is no slight on the genre, for which I have great respect – the best money my sister ever earned from her acting career was in Aladdin, singing A Whole New World while desperately clinging to a shonky hand-operated flying carpet. Still, there must be a reason people don’t pay to shout “He’s behind you!” any other time of year.
![[Louis Smith competing at the Rio Olympics in 2016.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/7081a18cd1514a64e05f393943c815518f6b3b4c/0_0_3500_2254/master/3500.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The tradition of sporting stars treading the boards alongside stalwart Rada-educated veterans has dropped off in recent years – ever since Strictly came along with its bedazzled leotards and its ability to turn Darren Gough’s delivery stride into a passable paso doble. Television reality shows have come to cannibalise the Christmas market in oven-ready athletes, whether it is exiling Frankie Dettori and Fatima Whitbread to the jungle or putting Anton Ferdinand and Ricky Hatton on ice.
![[Vinnie Jones (left) and Neil Ruddock dressed as The Ugly Sisters in 1993.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9291bff6cb97ce7dd9dde439abeabbd3bd98f16e/0_0_4744_4760/master/4744.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
