From camp to lamp: behind the scenes at the panto

It's an hour before curtain in the Cork Opera House and everyone’s stirring in preparation for their first sell-out show of the season.

Interns peg it out of the venue, returning with supplies for the props that are still being built in the Half Moon Theatre — now a half-way house for the overflow from the theatre’s biggest money spinner.

As I round a corner I walk smack, bang into a table full of scimitars. Stumbling backwards I nearly knock over shelves full of decorative oriental fans and then nearly pass out when confronted with a lifeless Chinese dragon awaiting possession in a darkened corridor.