Uxbridge Panto 2026: Two Jack and the Beanstalks

Hillingdon has two pantomimes this Christmas and, by coincidence or otherwise, both are Jack and the Beanstalk. They overlap for three weeks, at theatres under three miles apart, at very different prices. Both are confirmed for 2026, both are already selling, and between them they put on 84 performances.

Compass Theatre, Ickenham: from £11

Glebe Avenue, Ickenham, UB10 8PD. The council’s own pantomime, produced with DK Productions, running 3 to 31 December 2026. The council lists Dame Trott and Daisy the Cow among the characters but names no performers. (Jack and the Beanstalk, Hillingdon Council)

Prices

• Full price £21
• Under-16s £18
• Family ticket £72, for two adults and two children or one adult and three children
• Groups of 20 or more paying together, £16 a head, and this applies to family tickets too
• School tickets £11
• A £1.50 booking fee applies per transaction, which the council states separately from the ticket prices

Every performance, from the council’s own listing

There is no performance on Monday 7, Monday 14, Thursday 17, Monday 21, Friday 25 or Tuesday 29 December.

The family ticket is not available at every performance, and this is where the council’s page trips over itself. It names four family-ticket shows: Friday 11 December at 7.30pm, Saturday 26 December at 6pm, and Thursday 31 December at 12.30pm and 4pm. But its own calendar, on the same page, gives Saturday 26 December as 1.30pm and 5pm. There is no 6pm show that day. Three of the four family shows check out; the 26 December one does not, so ring the box office before you count on it.

School performances are £11 and run at 10am and 1pm on Thursday 3, Friday 4, Tuesday 8, Wednesday 9, Thursday 10, Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 December.

Access. Every child must be with a paying adult. One free carer ticket is available to an adult who needs another person’s help to leave the theatre safely in an emergency, and to any wheelchair user of any age. There are two wheelchair spaces per performance, and lap tickets for babies under 18 months subject to availability. All of those have to be booked by phone or email, not online: 01895 250615 or boxoffice@hillingdon.gov.uk. Tickets are non-refundable unless the event is cancelled.

Beck Theatre, Hayes: from £26

Grange Road, Hayes, UB3 2UE, run by Parkwood Theatres. Wednesday 9 to Thursday 31 December 2026, tickets from £26, running time 150 minutes including the interval. It stars Derek Moran of Milkshake!, and the characters listed are Jack, Dame Trott, Simon, Fleshcreep and Jill. (Jack and the Beanstalk, Beck Theatre)

The Beck’s marketing page shows only the run and a “from” price, but its ticketing system publishes the whole calendar. These are all 40 performances.

There is no performance on Sunday 20 December or on Christmas Day. Two useful patterns fall out of that list. The weekday 11am shows in the first week are the cheap ones: the theatre puts six of them on a different price list from the rest of the run, so if budget matters, aim at a morning before 19 December. And tickets have been on sale since 2pm on 12 December 2025, nearly a year ahead, so the best seats at the popular Christmas week shows have had a long time to go.

Group rates

• School groups £13.50 a ticket, or £14.50 including an ice cream, with one free teacher ticket for every ten children
• Scout and Guide groups £13.50, or £14.50 with an ice cream, but the theatre states plainly that they get no free leader tickets
• Family of four (two adults, two children) and groups of ten or more also get a discount, with no figure published

Box office 0203 342 9970.

The access gap at the Beck

The Compass publishes its carer, wheelchair and lap-ticket policy on the event page. The Beck publishes none, and its ticketing system explains why: not one of the 40 performances is flagged as BSL-interpreted, relaxed, captioned or audio-described. Every performance record carries all four of those markers set to false. Those are the fields the theatre itself uses to tag an access performance, so this is not a case of the information being hidden somewhere else on the site.

That may change. Producers often add a signed or relaxed show once the run is scheduled, and the Beck’s access page covers wheelchair spaces and assistance separately from performance type. But as the run stands today, a family that needs a relaxed performance has no listed option at the Beck and should call 0203 342 9970 rather than assume one will appear.

A third panto, three weeks earlier

Before either Jack opens, the Beck stages Beauty and the Beast from the British Airways Cabin Crew Entertainment Society, an amateur company. Six performances: Wednesday 18 November 7.30pm, Thursday 19 November 7.30pm, Friday 20 November 8pm, Saturday 21 November 2pm and 7.30pm, and Sunday 22 November 1.30pm. As of 3 September none of the six was on sale yet, so tickets and prices are still to come.

Also on at the Compass this Christmas

Rudolph’s Runny Nose: The Santa Show, Sunday 13 December 2026, 10am to 10.45am. A 45-minute show set in Santa’s workshop, for families with children aged three and over. Adults £15, under-16s £13 including a small gift from Santa. (Rudolph’s Runny Nose, Hillingdon Council) It sits at 10am on a day the pantomime plays 1.30pm and 5pm, so both are doable.

For context on how the council’s theatre programme has looked in past years, its 2024 festive round-up put The Santa Show and Snow White at the Compass from 5 December that year. (Christmas events in Hillingdon, 5 November 2024)

Getting there

The Compass is on Glebe Avenue in Ickenham, about 300 metres from Ickenham station, which is on both the Metropolitan and the Piccadilly line. The Beck is on Grange Road in Hayes, and its nearest station is Hayes and Harlington on the Elizabeth line and Great Western, but that is roughly 1.2 miles away, so it is a bus or a car rather than a walk.

If you are driving into Uxbridge, our parking in Uxbridge page has the council tariffs and the HillingdonFirst resident rates, and the roadworks and travel page tracks closures. The rest of the season is on our Christmas lights switch-on page.

What we will update

• Whether the Beck adds a relaxed, signed or captioned performance to the run
• The Beck’s top ticket price, which is still only published as “from £26”
• On-sale date and prices for the November Beauty and the Beast
• Whether the council corrects the 26 December family-ticket time on its own page

Performance times, prices and access flags read on 3 September 2026 from Hillingdon Council’s events system and from the Beck Theatre’s own ticketing records. Panto prices commonly rise between announcement and December, so check before booking.