Back in 1994 the group now known as the ‘Westenders’ was just a twinkle in the eyes of a group of parents on the committee of Lordsgate School PTFA, Burscough. They had been anxiously scouring their minds for new ideas to raise funds for the children’s primary school when someone suggested performing a pantomime. Those with a sense of humour agreed, but in order to guarantee at least some ticket sales it was felt that the pantomime would need the staff of the school to be in the cast, so that pupils would come along.

The first pantomime to be performed was ‘Robin Hood’ [view pictures]. No one in the cast, or backstage, had ever had any experience of acting, let alone producing a pantomime, so we seemed to muddle along for months and months rehearsing, until we thought we had something we could actually charge people to come and see.

Costumes were home made, the cast were also the backstage crew, the lights and sound were borrowed and the performance was amateur to say the least BUT … we did it! Our enthusiasm and perseverance paid off and we played to full audiences for three performances, raising approximately £600 for the school.

Following the success of ‘Robin Hood’ the Lordsgate PTFA quickly realised that performing pantomimes was fun, original and a good way of raising money – whilst giving enjoyment (we hoped) to lots of people. So, in 1996 ‘Aladdin’ became the second pantomime to be attempted. Maybe the success of ‘Robin Hood’ had come too easy, but prior to the performance of ‘Aladdin’ we were hit by lots of problems – primarily the withdrawal of an entertainment’s License from our venue.

However again perseverance got us through, not only was an alternative venue found, thanks to the local Methodist Church, it also came with a backstage crew, lighting and sound, which helped us immensely.

And so, late in 1997 the curtain went up on ‘Aladdin’ [view pictures]. We had learnt a lot from ‘Robin Hood’, ‘Aladdin’ was more professional, we knew what made the audience laugh, and we didn’t panic so much when things went wrong. It was a big success, we again played to a packed hall for four performances – despite the fact that staff from the school were no longer in it.

At the ‘last night’ party we felt that so much had been put into this production that we couldn’t let go of it, so further performances were put on shortly after in aid of the ’Phillip Gaskell Trust Fund’. This fund was set up to raise cash for Phillip, a victim of meningitis, who had lost his legs to the disease, but wished to carry on his love of sport by using artificial sports legs. These extra performances and accompanying raffles / donations raised over £1000 towards the cost of the artificial limbs.

By 1998 most of the original group of parents no longer had children at Lordsgate School, and so we felt that it was the right time to move on. Since productions had been concentrated at St. Johns Church Hall, we approached the Hall Committee and it was readily agreed that we could make it our base, using cash raised for productions to equip the hall with stage lighting and scenery provision.

To tie us to our new ‘headquarters’ the name ‘WESTENDERS’ was adopted, which not only relates to that famous area of London Theatres, but also to the ‘Westend’ area of the church.

It was agreed that once we have installed the necessary equipment we could use the hall to promote the arts further in the local community.

‘Cinderella’, our third production, was, by far, the most lavish of our pantomimes [view pictures]. For the first time all our costumes were hired, we had our own backstage crew, (although lighting and sound had to be borrowed), and our scenery was professionally pained by an inmate of a local prison.

Again our previous productions had taught us well, and we played four performances to packed halls, raising about £800 towards our target.

Now that we were an independent and successful group (committed to performing for years to come!), we felt we needed to do things properly. A committee was formed and a constitution drawn up – although the focus remains on enjoyment rather than legalities. We hope that this will help us in our search for grants and other financial aid.

Since then, we have been branching out a little by performing short dramas during church services – far different from the pantomime style we have been used to.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs then took place [view pictures]. Now with our own lighting equipment, the performance was enjoyed by all. We had almost 500 people in the audience over the five performance. The money from our first performance went to our pianist, Leigh Phillips who went to Mexico for a Scout Jamboree.

The next Pantomime to take place was Peter Pan [view pictures], which was performed in November 2001.  This pantomime has been written by a small group of our cast, and was reported as being our best pantomime ever.  The money from our charity performance (which came to £500) went to "The Special Care Baby Unit" at the Southport and Ormskirk Hospital.

The next Pantomime to take place was Jack and the Beanstalk [view pictures] in February 2004. Yet again the script written by part of the cast proved very popular. The money from the Wednesday night of this production was sent to Meningitis Research.

In November 2005 the Westenders performances of Ebenezer Scrooge took place, with the Wednesday nights money going to Cancer Research.

December 2006 saw 4 excellent performaces of Little Red Riding Hood.