Strictly Come Dancing dancer-turned-judge Anton Du Beke asked producer Michael Harrison if he could “step away” from what had become a regular Christmas pantomime booking, he revealed on the Judgemental podcast with co-host Craig Revel Horwood.
Appearing in a Christmas pantomime can be incredibly lucrative for celebrities, with big-name stars earning as much as £200,000 for a single festive run lasting roughly three to six weeks. One reason for the high pay is the demanding schedule, with usually two and sometimes three shows a day, leaving little time for family life.
Three years of back-to-back shows
Anton explained: “I did three years in a row … two shows a day, six days a week. So it’s 12 shows. You arrive in the morning and then you’re there all day. The only days we got off were Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. So Christmas was a bit of a write-off, a date children are too young for that.”
“So,” Anton told Craig, “I said to Michael, who we both worked for, ‘Would you mind if I stepped away for a while?’ And he said, ‘Yes, don’t worry, we understand.’”
Family priorities over a paycheque
Anton added that he “enjoyed the process” and would probably go back to appearing in pantomimes in the future. Craig, for his part, said he had been doing panto for over 20 years. The Strictly judge reportedly earned around £100k for a three-week run as The Wicked Queen in Snow White in Southampton back in 2015.
But Anton’s two young children are clearly more important to him than a paycheque, however hefty. He and wife Hannah went through a gruelling IVF journey before the birth of their twins George and Henrietta, who are now aged nine.
IVF journey and endometriosis struggle
Hannah struggled to conceive because of her painful struggle with endometriosis. Anton described his difficulty in understanding why someone who was so naturally caring struggled so much with her fertility.
He told Giovanna Fletcher's Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast: “I knew I wanted to be with her, I saw her with her nephews. She's so kind and so caring, I just couldn't understand the universe.
“Whoever is upstairs, if anyone's upstairs, looking down and going, 'You are the most perfect person to have children, but I'm not going to let you have any children because I'm going to give you this.'
“And I'm going to say, 'You're going to have this endometriosis, and you're going to suffer with this all of your life, chronically, and I'm not going to let you have any children.' I thought that was peculiar, cruel, and inexplicable and unforgivable. And if ever I go up to somewhere and meet this person I would say, 'I think you're not OK with decisions like this, this doesn't make any sense to me.'”
Anton added that it was hard to watch Hannah go through such a tough time and be unable to offer anything other than emotional support: “She has these injections and the bruises in the bum, in the thigh, in the stomach.
“And you're trying to help but what can you do? Whatever you want, tell me and I'll do it but that's all you have and it's horrendous as a man to watch it.
“You feel so inadequate and you want to do so much more but I can't do anything. And that's why you girls are so extraordinary, you're extraordinary that you do all this stuff.”
