Charlotte Dawson and Betty Legs Diamond to star in Beauty and The Beast panto at The Globe, Pleasure Beach

Budding Blackpool designers could see their creations come to life this pantomime season, after Blackpool Pleasure Beach launched a competition to design a costume for the iconic pantomime dame.

The chosen design will be developed by an illustrator at Stageworks Worldwide Productions, which is producing this year’s Beauty and The Beast pantomime at The Globe, and may even be used to inspire costumes for the company’s 2024 Pantomime.

The winner will also be invited to a backstage tour of the pantomime to meet the cast – which includes TV personality Charlotte Dawson and Blackpool icon Betty Legs Diamond – and get an insight into how a pantomime comes to life.

Judges Amanda Thompson OBE, CEO of Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Stageworks, and Simon Green aka Betty Legs Diamond, will select their top three costume designs which will then be put to public vote to crown the winner.

Simon is taking on the role of a dame with a difference, playing Chan-de-Lier in Beauty and The Beast, which runs from 25 November until 24 December.

He became a household name on the Fylde Coast as choreographer and performer at the original Funny Girls venue, taking to the stage as his alter ego Betty Legs Diamond for more than 16 years.

Simon said: “One of my favourite things about the pantomime Dame is that she’s funny before she even opens her mouth, and that’s all down to what she wears. Her costume is an essential panto ingredient and it’s so much more than just a dress. It tells us who she is, it makes us laugh, and no two outfits are ever the same.

“The advice I’d give to anyone designing a dame costume is that it has to be the showstopper, the more unique and bizarre the better. You want it to be something the audience will still be talking about when they go home – that’s what I’ll be looking for when I’m judging.”

Amanda added: “There’s so much creativity in our local area, and that’s one of the reasons we wanted to run this competition.

“Our costumes are a huge passion-point of mine and we’re proud to produce the best in the business, so this is a fantastic opportunity for us to open our doors to a budding designer and show them how we produce costumes at the standard we do.

“I’m looking forward to seeing the entries and who knows, if I’m really impressed then the winner might just find their costume featuring in our 2024 pantomime season.”

The winner and two runners up will also receive tickets to Beauty and The Beast at The Globe, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, which stars TV personality Charlotte Dawson.

Entrants can download an entry form at www.blackpoolpleasurebeach.com/design-a-dame/ and must submit their designs to [email protected] by Sunday 3rd December.