THE PAUL O'GRADY PLAYERS 

Between 2005 - 2009 everyone used to run home from work and school to watch the PAUL O'GRADY SHOW on ITV and CHANNLE 4.
The Paul O'Grady Show was a British comedy chat show presented by Paul himself. The programme is a teatime chat show consisting of a mixture of celebrity guests, comic stunts, musical performances, and occasionally viewer competitions.
 

Every year, the show had an annual Christmas pantomime. Roughly 15 guest stars appeared in the panto. There was always one narrator, who told the story throughout the panto. This had been Antony Cotton, Dawn French, Kate Thornton, Sandi Toksvig and Stephen Fry. The panto ran roughly for the whole show, with usually five minutes left at the end when O'Grady and the stars answered the questions that had been e-mailed in by the viewers. However, in the 2006 panto, Peter Pan, the panto only ran for roughly 40 minutes, ending around 5.40 pm. After this, O'Grady interviewed Dawn French, who was the narrator, as he would do on a normal show. There was then, as usual, the organ game and O'Grady and all the stars then answered e-mails sent in by the viewers. The panto was always on the last Wednesday before Christmas, meaning that it was always broadcast live.

The pantos were:
 

• 2005: The Wizard of Oz

• 2006: Peter Pan

• 2007: Cinderella

• 2008: Pinocchio

• 2009: Sleeping Beauty (broadcast on 14 December instead of 16 December)
   

Jo Brand was the only celebrity who appeared in the panto every year. O'Grady thanked Brand for her appearance in every annual panto on the show after the fifth and final panto on 14 December 2009.

The pantomime did not return in the 2013 revival.
 

The Paul O'Grady Show pantomime was always a highlight in the show's calendar and once again Paul (under his creative decision) brought the joy of pantomime into everyone's home. What a fantastic person! ​

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