Watch Eastbourne's G&S-inspired Zoom panto

Jack Point & The Beanstalk is available on YouTube and will stay there indefinitely. Search for Jack Point and the Beanstalk/Eastbourne G&S Pantomime. Viewers are asked to make a donation via https://www.gofundme.com/f/keep-gilbert-sullivan-alive to swell the coffers a little after a very difficult 2020.

Writer Rowan Stanfield said: “It was really good fun. The main motivation was to give our members something to focus on to keep going through the long winter months. We are quite a diverse society with members from their 20s to 80s, and some of the older members can be quite isolated. And we managed to get them on the technology!

“I wouldn’t say it was without its challenges.

“A lot of time was spent saying ‘Press the button!’ but we got through it and we are really pleased with it.”

It offers a virtual pantomime with a G&S twist, a chance to join jester Jack Point and friends on a magical romp through pantoland, rehearsed and recorded via Zoom during the Covid-19 lockdown.

“I came up with the idea at the end of last summer, and once I had the idea I hammered it out and wrote it quite quickly.

“I decided to do a panto that interweaved the characters and some of the songs of the operettas. We have got some very well known ones woven in with some that are more obscure.”

The society had been due to perform Pirates of Penzance last May. Inevitably, it didn’t happen. And Rowan’s hopes that they might stage it this May are starting to fade as well: “We would have had to be starting rehearsals by now.”

But for the moment at least, the G&S-inspired panto has given members and audiences some cheer...