Last month I did something for the first time. I appeared in panto. True to form, I didn’t think about it much before doing it. Although how lovely to be asked – especially as it was in a voluntary capacity for the charity and community centre JW3 and their annual take on the tradition.

It is, in fact, billed as the world’s only Jewish pantomime – and I can confirm it laces the best of the British tradition with excellent Yiddishims and Jew-‘ish’ japes. This year? Cinderella and the Matzo Ball.

We, as a family fond of festive shows, have been attending en masse, schlepping over to north London, from our southern bit, for the last two years and loved each and every performance. Even when our daughter was nearly two, she sat mesmerised by the whole hilarious spectacle – loving the format of occasionally being able to shout out things and the catching of flying sweets from the stage to the audience.

As someone who ran the student theatre at university, directing and performing in plays, I was also excited, however briefly, to get back on stage and be in that special place with people creating. I came straight from the day job at BBC Radio 4’s Today programme – from one creative space to another – with key parallels and differences.

My role was to record a voiceover for the Jews at Ten – geddit? And, at times, slightly breathlessly recount the movements of Prince Charming and Cinderella as things got messy in a breaking news kind of way. And while the pun heavy script did most of the heavy lifting for this tired woman, up since 3am but keen to revive her student acting career, it was the small bits of........

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