All the world’s a stage: this election has echoes of Shakespeare and Dickens

The Christmas election has unfolded like a series of mini-dramas from panto, Dickens and other popular classics.

Boris has come across as a Dick Whittington figure, already twice mayor of London, and hoping to establish his seat in the capital on a more permanent footing. Jeremy Corbyn resembles Mother Goose flinging sugary treats at gullible children. And Jo Swinson has clearly been reading Cinderella (and believing every word of it). Swinson positioned herself as the long-suffering drudge who must tidy away the mess left by the Ugly Sisters, namely the Tory and Labour parties. In the story, Cinderella ends up as a princess (‘I’m standing to be your next prime minister’). The snag is that elections rarely turn out like fairy tales.

Every good panto includes a bit of audience participation. And this year the TV interviewers have been clambering across the footlights a little too eagerly to outshine the politicians. Andrew Marr did his best to demolish Boris in a bad-tempered exchange during which, according to one calculation, Marr’s words occupied 43 per cent of the entire interview. Shortly afterwards, the Tories shot up to the same level in the polls.

Not every performer makes it through the auditions. Heidi Allen seemed ideal as the cross-dressing panto dame with an impressive range of costumes to choose from. She wore the blue rosette of the Tories, then adopted the weird zebra-striped banner of Change UK. After that she defected to the autumn gold of the Liberal Democrats. In the end she pulled out of the show altogether. Nerves, apparently.

No panto would be complete without a shadowy pimpernel invisible to the characters on stage. ‘He’s behind you!’ cry the audience.