Biggins’s career as a dame? It’s behind you

ARE panto dames doomed in these politically correct times? Oh yes they are, says veteran Christopher Biggins.

‘The day will come when they’ll say a dame, which is essentially a male character in women’s clothing, will have to be played by a woman,’ he laments at a charity auction of a portrait of the Marchioness of Bath, hosted by Grove Square Galleries in London.

The principal boy in pantomimes used to be played by an actress, but that tradition has largely been ditched. ‘The whole thing is ridiculous,’ says Biggins, 72 (left), who plays a dame in Jack And The Beanstalk at the Orchard Theatre in Dartford, Kent.