Pantomime

Subject: RE: BS: Pantomime
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Jan 17 - 12:20 PM

There's a website celebrating panto:

It's Behind You!

Subject: RE: BS: Pantomime
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Jan 17 - 03:10 PM

Did any Mudcatter ever see Stanley Baxter in a pantomime?
To think that he is still alive.

Subject: RE: BS: Pantomime
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 Jan 17 - 03:02 PM

What about Barbara Windsor then? (title role in "Aladdin")

Subject: RE: Pantomime
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 Jan 17 - 03:26 PM

Thanks to Eliza, Mudcat has this fresh pantomime thread.
And thanks to Joe Offer:
we have crosslinks for related pantomime threads (some of them most informative)
and we're above the BS line now, because Joe Offer says that British Christmas Pantomime is cultural, and cultural gets to go upstairs. Neat.

---

"cultural gets to go upstairs" - within limits. Don't expect to see movies and TV and celebrity obits upstairs. -Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Pantomime
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Jan 22 - 03:32 AM

I've always thought pantomime and mime to be synonymous and equally silent, but I'm learning that's not the case. So, can somebody explain this all to us?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Pantomime
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 13 Jan 22 - 04:08 AM

Pantomime has become a peculiar institution. It is a musical play with stock characters usually based on a well known fairy story such as Cinderella, Babes in the Wood or Dick Whittington. The songs are often current hit songs with the lyrics altered to fit the play and often referencing current topics. The stock characters include:
the Hero, played by a young woman
the Heroine, also played by a young woman,
a pantomime horse, played by two people who often perform a soft shoe shuffle,
and the Dame, played my an older man.
The Dame provides the comedy and will often appear in a different and outrageous costume in each scene. The audience is meant to join in with the singing and there is a lot of interaction between the players and the audience with much cry out of "it's behind you" and "Oh no, it isn't" and "Oh yes, it is".
It is a traditional Christmas performance and most repertory theatres will put on a pantomime, often with celebrities playing the lead parts.

Subject: RE: Pantomime
From: DaveRo
Date: 13 Jan 22 - 04:43 AM

The local Arts Society (in the UK) recently hosted this online presentaion by Ian Gledhill:
The Magic of Pantomime

He explained how panto evolved from the Commedia Dell'arte, via France to England (where they couldn't speak Italian, so they mimed), why the cross-dressing, and where the stories came from.

Maybe your group or club could book him. He's very good.

(Oh no he isn't!)

Subject: RE: Pantomime
From: GUEST,Diolch
Date: 13 Jan 22 - 07:58 AM

I think one of the reasons panto is such a beloved art form in the UK is that many people have fond childhood memories of attending. It's also an art form that, like current animated films (e.g. Pixar's best), can accommodate multiple levels of humour simultaneously aimed at both adults and children.

Mudcatters would especially appreciate the traditional singalong, often of a comic song, towards the end. I remember singing along, when I was very young, with the great Norman Wisdom (playing his trademark slapstick tragi-comedy as either Buttons in Cinderella, or Wishy Washy the laundry assistant in Aladdin).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttons_(pantomime)

My friend claims his favourite childhood memory is of singing along with comedian Les Dawson as a pantomime Dame. For those who don't remember Dawson, I can recommend the first three minutes or so of this archive footage of his non-panto singalong on this 1970s tv chat show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMOrsWxh5mg

Subject: RE: Pantomime
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 13 Jan 22 - 08:58 AM

Pierrot Grenade is the main jester in Caribbean mas. Many of the stock characters appear elsewhere in carnival &c.

The name is a diminutive of Pierre. The original title for Haitian Oswald Durand's famous Kreyole poem was Petit Pierre; his Columbine is named Choucoune who dumps him for her ginger French colonial Harlequin.

The American circus clown comes from the same place of course. George L. Fox's (1825–1877) panto of the English Humpty-Dumpty was Broadway's first real hit show and its longest running for a decade. My boy American circus aeronaut Charles E. Colby also did Humpty-Dumpty on vaudeville. No stranger to Caribbean carnival clowning either was he.

Woody Guthrie's aw shucks, rodeo clown-hillbilly sage shtick was pure Zanni.

Subject: RE: Pantomime
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 13 Jan 22 - 11:42 AM

As children in Kent and S.E. London a visit to the Christmas pantomime was standard fare for us. Unless my memory fails me I do recall on one occasion seeing Margaret Lockwood in "Peter Pan" as she flew in harness round the stage. Inoffensive, innocent days.