SWANSEA Grand Theatre patrons raised a whopping £28,500 for the Swansea Valley Miners’ Appeal Fund, after a special charity performance and bucket collections were held during the most successful pantomime season for years, Aladdin starring Jimmy Osmond.

Wayne Thomas , general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers and Swansea Valley Miners’ Appeal Fund Trustee, Tyronne O’Sullivan, received the cheque from Gerald Morris, strategic, operations and finance manager, and Paul Hopkins, programming, marketing and development manager, along with some of Swansea Grand Theatre’s staff.

The full company of Aladdin – and staff at the theatre – staged an extra charity performance of the panto on Sunday, January 8, at 6pm, in aid of the Swansea Valley Miners’ Appeal Fund.

As soon as Qdos Entertainment, producers of this year’s pantomime saw coverage of the Gleision mining disaster, they immediately got in touch with the theatre to see if there was anything they could do to support the families.

The full company of Aladdin and Swansea Grand Theatre staff, from the cleaners and crew, through to box office and front-of-house staff, all agreed to work for free for this performance to raise as much money as possible.

Paul Hopkins, programming, marketing and development manager said: “We were all quite humbled by the fantastic response we had from the theatre-going public of Swansea. Their generosity was typical of Swansea’s reputation as being a warm and welcoming city, and the cast and staff of Aladdin 2012 were only too pleased to be a small part of this massive fund raising appeal.”