So what are the best panto jokes so far this year? Prepare to groan!

It’s early days, but right at the top of the tree is Tucker in the big Eastbourne panto this year who got me, as we finished our interview, when he told me of his tragic festive knitwear mishap. I felt quite sorry for him as he lamented: “I have been having awful problems with my new jumper. It's absolutely full of static!... I am going to have to take it back and ask for a new one... free of charge!” I asked Ben Watson, Buttons at Hastings’ White Rock Theatre, for his favourite. He was back at me with “Why aren’t there any painkillers in the jungle? Because the parrots ate ‘em all!” (Say it quickly, say it out loud). When it comes to laughs, though, it’s special mention this year for the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth where the gags come thick and fast. For reasons I daren’t fathom I have always loved: “He drowned in a vat of coffee. Fortunately he didn’t suffer. It was instant…” Definitely an old favourite – but fabulous too was the new one on me. “I am taking my car to the vets.” “The vets?” “It’s a jaguar” Another cracker – plus countless others I tried desperately to remember but failed. But maybe that’s the point. The best panto laughs are fleeting. It’s the pace that counts. A particular favourite some years ago was the dame – I can’t even remember where – who announces “I’ve been married 16 times” – to which Buttons offers an appropriate expression of surprise. “Yes,” the dame confirms, “Four richer, four poorer, four better, four worse.” Making a return at the Kings, Southsea this year was: “I went out last night and had 14 pints of low-fat yoghurt. I got totally Mullered.” Slightly dodgier – and again a few years ago and again I can’t remember where – was the Dame who lamented her late husband. “I used to rub grease all over his back to make him feel better… He went downhill really fast after that!” In Bognor a few years ago (and this one needs to be sung to the tune of a certain Elton John song), the comic remarked that he had seen a tiny rabbit fairly galloping on Elton’s treadmill. He paused and then added: “It’s a little fit bunny…” Imagine the tune of Your Song. OK, well, it worked for me… Oh and let’s not forget the panto comic who listed the price of apple pies in Antigua, Barbados and Trinidad etc before adding “Yep, those are the pie rates of the Caribbean!” Or the comic who confessed to farting in the lift: “It was wrong on so many different levels…” But come on, I am sure you can do better than that! What are your favourties? Not necessarily just panto jokes, but generally duff Christmas jokes. Do email them to me at phil.hewitt@nationalworld.com and I will add them to this list. Let me know if you wish your name beside the joke. Equally anonymity will be respected. I am not entirely sure I want to put my name to these either… Oh and you don’t have to keep the jokes clean. If anyone sends in any slightly more risqué ones, I will create a separate list with a warning attached. For instance, why is Santa always so jolly? It’s because he knows where all the naughty girls live… And this just in: “Why does Santa climb down the chimney?” “Because it soots him very nicely!” And this from Carole Anne Benton: “What do you call an unwashed fairy?” “Stinkerbell”