CLIFFS Pavilion is celebrating its most successful pantomime in its history.

Aladdin was a huge hit and the audience couldn’t get enough of the action packed festive spectacular show during its sell out run.

Almost 70,000 people flocked to the ever-popular theatre for the show.

The headline stars were dance troop Diversity, who have been a household name since 2009, when they won the third series of Britain’s Got Talent.

Group leader Ashley Banjo took to social media to post about the success of the show.

He tweeted: “Well the Panto madness came to an end last night

“Had a bit too much fun playing the Genies of the Ring to nearly 70,000 people in a few weeks, over Christmas and New Year.

“Sold out.”

Staff also took to Twitter to praise the huge production.

Replying to Ashely Banjo, employee Janna House said: “I have worked at the Cliffs Pavilion for seventeen years and this was our first ever sold out panto.

“Diversity totally smashed it.

“Thank you for making our job to sell the tickets so easy.

“I hope you enjoyed your time in Southend.”

Marketing manager Paul Driscoll said the show had been a major smash-hit

He said: “It was certainly one of, if not the, most successful panto for us.

“We had 63-and-a-half thousand people come to see the show in three weeks.

“It was so successful we had to extend the running to have two additional shows, which were just as popular.

“Audiences could not get enough of it and so many people have posted online about how much they loved it and also we’ve had wonderful reviews about the show.

“A lot of people said they thought it was the best ever.

“I think the success is down to a few factors, we had some big special effects including a huge python and the flying carpet which went down so well with the audience.

“The comedy factor always goes down very well and this year Diversity were the added icing on the cake, as they brought a different aspect with their spectacular routines.

“The success is certainly not something we take for granted, pantomime is a major part of our yearly theatre programme and it did break the mold.

“We started to suspect it would do so well in about March and April time last year.

“It is of course tremendously rewarding for us.”

Mr Driscoll said ticket sales are already booming for this year’s production of Peter Pan at the theatre.

He said they may even be able to build more upon the success with this year’s panto.

Mr Driscoll said: “We’ve already sold about 15,000 tickets for this year’s pantomime production which is even better than this time last year.”