PANTO

For those who do not know, a Pantomime is a traditional musical-comedy theatrical production found in Great Britain usually performed at Christmas, with family audiences with children and parents, incorporating song, dance, buffoonery, slapstick, in-jokes, audience participation, and mild sexual innuendo. There are a number of traditional story-lines, and there is also a fairly well-defined set of performance conventions:

• Panto story lines and scripts typically make no reference to Christmas, and are almost always based on traditional children's stories, like Aladdin, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, etc...
• The leading male juvenile character (the "principal boy") is traditionally played by a young woman, and usually in tight-fitting male garments that make her female charms evident.
• An older woman (the pantomime dame) is usually played by a man in drag.
• Risqué double entendre, often innuendo out of perfectly innocent phrases. This is, in theory, over the heads of the children in the audience.
• Audience participation, including calls of "look behind you!" and "Oh, yes it is!" or "Oh, no it isn't!" The audience is always encouraged to "Boo" the villain, and "Awwwww" the poor victims, such as the rejected dame, who usually fancies the prince.
• A song combining a well-known tune with re-written lyrics. The audience is encouraged to sing the song; often one half of the audience is challenged to sing "their" chorus louder than the other half.
• The animal, played by an actor in "animal skin" or animal costume. It is often a horse or cow, played by two actors in a single costume, one as the head and front legs, the other as the body and back legs.
• The good fairy always enters from stage right and the evil villain enters from stage left.

I have seen it all tonight at Robin Hood at the Beck Theater:

some people I know in the pics!

check it out at www.bacces.info