SIR — I read in the free Christmas pull-out section of the Free Press where some numpty has written that "Minehead Panto People have found two new dames to play this year's Ugly Sisters..."
Now anyone who knows anything about pantomime knows that the Dame is always a warm-hearted character and more often than not someone's mother.
She is also often called by the prefix Dame (Dame Durden, Dame Trott or even Dame Dolly Doughnut) with the exception of Widow Twankey and Mother Goose.
The Uglies are both sisters and the main baddies in "Cinderella" (save for when their mother, the Baroness, is featured and she becomes the villain, with the Uglies relegated to comedy relief and slapstick).
Having also worked with some of the top Dames (Reg Dixon, Terry Scott, Billy Dainty and Christopher Biggins), I also know that only one or two Dames have ever crossed the bridge to an Ugly Sister - mainly because it not only means they have to share the limelight but also that there are then twice as many frocks and wigs to contend with.
Terry Scott did it once with his TV comedy partner Hugh Lloyd and then famously with Julian Orchard, both times at the London Palladium.
Female impersonators also do not cross over into panto, either as Dame or Ugly Sister.
Of course, there was Danny LaRue, who did both, as did Patrick Fyffe.
Patrick, though, did it in a very strange manner - he only agreed to be the Fairy Godmother in a production of Cinderella if he could play it as Dame Hilda Brackett doing an impersonation of Dame Anna Neagle (who had dropped out of the show at a very late stage due to ill health), which he did, to great success.
More recently we have seen Paul O'Grady, as his alter ego Lilly Savage, play the Wicked Queen in Snow White - again with great gusto!
Such instances are few and far between, and the stage is littered with failed attempts. A good Dame or Ugly Sister takes time, and much work.
My friends Peter Robbins and Nigel Ellacott would have notched up 30 years as professional Ugly Sisters in 2010 - sadly, Peter died suddenly this Easter, the work got him in the end.
Jim Woodley,
Middlemoor,
Moor Road,
Minehead.