The New Theatre Cardiff’s annual pantomime has been cancelled following today’s announcement from the First Minister.

All performances of Aladdin from 26 December 2021 have been cancelled.

This year’s pantomime was due to be at the New Theatre Cardiff until Sunday, 2 January 2022.

Earlier today, the First Minister for Wales, Mark Drakeford announced new measures from 6am on Boxing Day to help keep Wales safe.

The measures are a revised version of alert level two to respond to the new omicron variant and are designed to help keep businesses open and trading and protect customers and staff. However, the rule of 6 and 2m distancing has seen a number of theatres close their productions early.

A statement released by the New Theatre this afternoon said:

“Due to the change in legislation announced by Welsh Government on Wed 22 Dec 2021, we are sad to say that all performances of Aladdin from 26 December 2021 onwards have been cancelled.

“We will be in contact with ticket holders directly to inform them of their option. If we have an email address on record we will contact you on that email (please also check spam/junk folders), if not we will be in touch by telephone in the coming days.

“As you can imagine, the team here at the New Theatre are incredibly busy dealing with this situation so please do not contact us in relation to the cancellation – we will contact you with all of the information you need.

“Thank you for your patience and understanding and we hope you have a good Christmas.”