It could have been keberoxu. The Pantomime usually runs from Christmas well into New Year. We find it just lifts us up when Christmas is over and the winter is getting a bit miserable.
I think a Panto rests on the personality of the man who plays the Dame. He has to be a real trouper with a skill for ad libs and camping it up. The costumes too play a huge part, being very brightly-coloured and, for the Dame, with several changes (usually very ornate and bizarre 'frocks' with fruit bowls or huge vegetables on his hat)
My husband is used to it now, but was very puzzled the first time. After about thirty minutes, he leaned across to me and whispered, " I think that strange lady is a MAN!" When I explained that it was, he was astonished. He was also fascinated by the actors whizzing about in the air on flying cables. And when the villain (a witch, in Snow White) rose up out of the ground amid clouds of yellow 'smoke' he nearly jumped out of his skin. That was many years ago of course.
This year there was a pantomime cow (two men, back and front) and several lovely dancers, not to mention special strobe lighting and laser stuff. A huge inflated foot came down from the 'sky' which was the giant.
I love all these traditional things, such as Punch and Judy and Morris dancing. I even remember pierrots on the beach at Westgate-on-sea in the early fifties.