It Wouldn't Be Christmas Without A Pantomime

A visit to the Pantomime is a longstanding Christmas tradition. Children and grown-ups alike love it, this peculiarly British way to celebrate the festive season. When else would you take the kids to see a woman playing a man, a man playing a woman and the most blatantly fake animal ever seen on a stage? There are several elements that must be included in a traditional Panto; the show should be based on a well-known fairytale; there must be singing and dancing; topical jokes as well as old chestnuts; shameless double entendre; lots of audience participation; familiar stock characters must appear, and of course there must be a transformation scene where the put-upon hero or heroine finally achieves their destiny. The word pantomime originally meant the person performing in a dumb show