How to be a Panto star

From Eva Wiseman, in the Guardian:

Backstage at the Hippodrome, emotions run high. They trickle like condensation down the lit-up mirrors, and bounce into scenery like puppies. Two urchins harmonise in a doorway, and a chattering pensioner kneels at your feet, pinning your sequined tights into place. Breathe. But not so deeply that you smudge your eye-liner moustache. Through the curtains and sweating walls you hear the audience take their seats, and a child screams in time with the beating of your migraine. This time last decade you were signing autographs in a hot tub somewhere south of Miami; your biggest worries were the fans, shouting your catchphrase over the reinforced gates, and whether the studio would sign on for a sequel. It didn't. Now, in your dank disabled toilet stroke dressing room, with the lost member of 5ive doing up his beard behind you, you marvel at those, your pre-panto days. From the depths of your cloudy mind, someone shouts, of course: 'They're behind you.'