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