There are many things that are associated with the period up-to and after Christmas including the obvious; the religious aspects, the task of buying presents which, despite the increase in online shopping (now about 13%) still attracts hordes of people to the high street and, in recent years here in Birmingham a visit to the ever-popular Frankfurt Christmas market.
However, one tradition that many families indulge in during the festive season is a trip to the theatre to see a pantomime.
For many it’s an opportunity to see a form of live entertainment that they would not otherwise consider.
And as anyone who has attended panto will tell you, it is a fabulous spectacle involving brightly coloured costumes and makeup, marvellous special effects and, all-too-frequently, ludicrous stories intended to amuse coupled with jokes that are, quite frankly, pretty awful.
Whilst many enjoy the experience, for some the word ‘pantomime’ has a somewhat negative connotation.
For the detractors pantomime typifies a form of theatre that is most certainly not ‘high-brow’ nor intelligent.
As we all know, pantomime is often used as an adjective to mean a situation of something that is achieved in a slapdash or overly-hasty manner in which the results occur in a disorganised and haphazard way.
Interestingly, though we may consider pantomime to be relatively recent, becoming popular in this country in Victorian times, its origins are much older.
Jeffrey Richards who is Professor of Cultural History at Lancaster University has recently published The Golden Age of Pantomime in which he explains the history of pantomime.
Pantomime has existed even longer the popular belief that it started in England when Victoria was queen and, as Richards describes, has survived by constantly adapting to the prevailing societal mores and mood that characterised the prevailing circumstances.
Pantomime as a form of entertainment originated in Greece and the word derives from pantomimos meaning imitator.
In ancient Greece this involved a group of musicians and actors engaged using sung narrative and accompanying music to ‘imitate’ seen as aspects of everyday society but including tragedy, love and affairs of business.
The origins of what we would recognise as being pantomime came about as a result of the performance in Italy in the middle-ages known as commedia dell’arte short for commedia dell’arte all’improvviso meaning “comedy of the creative ability of improvisation” and which consisted of a band of players travelling the country (and France) telling amusing stories though intended to impart a moral tale.
In order to provide the comedic effect actors wearing garish outfits and makeup would play clowns based on characters such as Arlecchino and Colombina, the father of the girl Pantalone and his servants Pulcinella and Pierrot one of whom displayed cunning the other merely being an idiot.
Commedia dell’arte gave rise to the harlequinade who, though we usually instantly recognise as being a theatrical invention and which used to be an essential character in pantomime but which has sadly declined and is now rarely seen.
Fascinatingly it wasn’t until a change in the law in 1843 that most audiences could in this country could hear anything as only dancing and gestures were allowed apart from certain ‘patent theatres’ in London.
Performances of pantomime based on commedia dell’arte were performed in London in the early 1700s at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in which the emphasis was in essentially retelling serious classical stories though with a comedic ending.
Audiences loved the funny parts and wanted to be mesmerised and entertained not moralised at.
As a consequence, the comedic aspect became more important.
The role of harlequin was essential in creating ‘magic’ by using their sword or bat to transform scenery which, of course, allowed the setting to be altered which moved the story on.
It was during the reign Victoria that pantomime became really popular and it became de rigueur to irreverently send up high culture that the higher classes were believed to hold so dear to being seen to be civilised; appreciation of history, grand opera and Shakespeare.
As such pantomime served a purpose not dissimilar to stand-up comics of today in pointing out the inconsistencies and contradictions as well as the hypocrisy of ‘the establishment’.
It is important to recognise that panto’s popularity was not just as a form of escapism and entertainment having a dig at the country’s rulers, but was egalitarian in that everyone including the queen herself attended to laugh at whoever was being sent up.
One newspaper in 1867 noted that pantomime was as “venerable” as Magna Carta and as “worthy of the boards of Old Drury [Lane] as the works of Shakespeare himself.”
However, five years later some commentators were criticising pantomime as having become too focused on what was viewed as entertainment and slapstick at the expense of the story.
Significantly the importance attached of clowns, most especially the harlequin, was gradually lessened and replaced a range of characters appearing in the sort of tales we now standardly expect as pantomime such as Cinderella, Aladdin, Dick Whittington and His Cat and Jack and the Beanstalk.
Perhaps as significant was that even though there may still be a vague moral tale within the story, the performance as well including song and dance required aspects many theatre purists find distasteful; slapstick, cross-dressing, in-jokes, topical references, audience participation, and mild sexual innuendo.
Professor Richards points out that the desire to attract audiences through the use of well-known celebrities and spending vast amounts on special effects is nothing new. He cites a pantomime in 1900 at Drury Lane during which a 50ft-long giant was used from which children dressed as soldiers emerged from his pockets.
In effect pantomime was morphing into the brash and outrageous experience many of us thoroughly enjoy every year at this time and which include a number of quintessentially – some might argue quirky – British ‘conventions’.
The principal ‘boy’ used to be played by a young woman in order that older man, usually fathers of children, could see a woman’s shapely legs which, in Victorian times was considered extremely salacious.
And the female dame is traditionally played by a man usually chosen on the basis that he has little or no femininity.
That Danny La Rue was best-known for appearing as a woman was considered too good looking when he played a dame in panto should hardly have been a surprise!
Apparently, the fact that a ‘good fairy’ enters from stage right and the villain from the left (both from the audience's perspective), dates back to what are known as ‘medieval mystery plays’ in which the right side of the stage is believed to symbolise Heaven and the left symbolised Hell.
According to surveys Cinderella, first presented in 1820 and including the legendary actor and clown Joseph Grimaldi (1778 –1837) and who perfected the white painted face of the harlequin, is our favourite pantomime followed by Aladdin. The inclusion of buttons and the ugly sisters were later additions.
Peter Pan and Robin Hood are also increasingly likely to be offered as a pantomime but, sadly, old favourites such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Puss in Boots and Mother Goose are much less likely to be staged.
There are superstitions in panto such as the fairy should transfer her wand the right hand to her left so that she is protected from evil though there is probably connection to the same belief concerning the mystery plays.
The absence of fresh flowers is a superstition invented to simply cut the cost!
Strangely green is believed to be unlucky though I have seen plenty of it in the pantos I have attended.
One of the real joys of pantomime is the encouragement of the audience to engage in participating through their ability to see villains when the lead character apparently cannot by shouting “they’re behind you”.
The audience are also encouraged to hiss and boo every time the villain appears and given that there are often allusions to their possible connection with a real-life character who is especially unpopular (often a politician) at the time, this response gets added gusto.
And, as Victorian audiences found so utterly delightful, the ability of the performers in pantomime to engage in risqué lines and double entendre, and which is intended to be such that only the adults will fully understand, provides a quality that allows panto to endure in a way that saucy postcards from the seaside have not.
Indeed, pantomime is utterly flexible in that it adapts to suit the changing circumstances and, crucially, remains something that all the family, regardless of age, can attend.
Moreover, its continuing popularity is explicitly based on creating a couple of hours of escapism and spectacle to allow the audience to be transported away from their daily woes and economic circumstances which though still true today would have been especially so for the working classes of Victorian Britain.
Long may pantomime continue though I acknowledge it is not everyone’s ‘cup of tea’.
I’d like to conclude by wishing you a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous 2015.
