Christmas Gems

Pantomime

The first Pantomime was performed in England during the 16^th Century – the gender role reversal resembles the old festival of Twelfth Night a combination of Epiphany and midwinter feast, when it was customary for the natural order of things to be reversed - hence the emergence of the Pantomime Dame, a man playing a woman, usually of mature years and the young hero being played by a young girl.   A ‘Lord of Misrule’ was appointed to oversee the festivities and Twelfth Night meant the end of his reign.  This tradition can be traced back to pre-Christian European festivals such as Samhain and Saturnalia.

In 1717 Theatre Manager John Rich introduced the Pantomime to the English Stage, he himself playing Harlequin (a figure from the Commedia Dell’Arte).  The audience were treated to ‘spectacle’ or ‘special effects’ as we would call the nowadays.  The Pantomimes became ever more topical and comic and soon got competition from Colley Cibber and his company at the Drury Lane Theatre.  There was great rivalry between the two theatres and the companies tried to outdo each other in who could put on the best Pantomime.

There are a number of set pieces in a pantomime, such as the leading male character being played by a female.  This became very popular in Victorian England where it presented a fine chance for the men to get a flash of female thigh, in an age when not even a woman’s ankles were on show and even the legs of the pianos were covered.  An older woman (the Pantomime Dame) is played by a man in drag (female clothing).  Risqué jokes and double entendre are an essential part of any Pantomime and a good Pantomime Dame can make the most innocent phrase sound dirty.  The Pantomime horse or pantomime cow, played by two actors in a single costume, one playing the head and front legs and the other playing body and back legs, this can either be hilarious or a complete disaster, depending on the skills of the two actors.  Another convention taken from the Commedia Dell’Arte is the fact that the good fairy enters from the right side of the stage and the evil villain from the left, the two sides symbolizing heaven and hell.

Nowadays the visit to a Pantomime is a great family Christmas outing and Pantomimes usually start on Boxing Day and run well into January.  The stuff of modern Pantomime is song, dance, sexual innuendo, slapstick, topical in-jokes and cross dressing.  The villain is hissed and the hero and heroine are cheered and warned (behind you!). 

 One of the traditions of Pantomime is the celebrity guest star and in England a number of well known faces from the TV find their way into theatres to perform Pantomime for Christmas and many a declining career has been revived.  This tradition was started by 19^th Century Theatre proprietor Augustus Harris at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, who hired well known variety artists.  This tradition was followed in 2004 when one of our most respected Shakespearian actors, Sir Ian McKellen, donned a frock and trod the boards in the guise of Widow Twankey and repeated the role at the Old Vic Theatre in London in 2005, to the delight of all.

Plots are often loosely based on children’s stories and fairytales, i.e.  Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Puss in Boots, Jack and the Beanstalk, Peter Pan, Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.