“Panto has everything theatrical – song, dance, verse, slapstick, soliloquy, audience participation, spectacle, cross- dressing and a good plot, strong on morality and romance – what more could you want from a family outing?”
– Ian McKellen
You must get on an airplane, fly to England and see a pantomime. That’s my Christmas wish for everybody reading this.
Pantomime means theater without words everywhere but in the United Kingdom. For Brits, pantomime is Christmas musical theater – the glitzier and cornier, the better.
Take an ancient story like Cinderella, Snow White or Robin Hood and cast an old man as a woman. That’s the dame role. If there isn’t an obvious one, like the Wicked Stepmother, write one in. Then cast a young woman, preferably a television star, as a man. That’s the principal boy role: Robin Hood, Prince Charming. Add a villain and a good-looking female television star as principal girl – Maid Marian, Sleeping Beauty – along with at least one pair playing a horse or a cow.
Throw in over-the-top musical numbers, a lot of sight gags, groaner puns and pop- culture references – many off-color jokes designed to sail over the heads of the toddlers in the audience – and you have the full pantomime experience.
There’s a medium-sized debate going on about whether panto suddenly has become cool. The Barbican Theatre is mounting edgy playwright Mark Ravenhill’s production of “Dick Whittington’s Cat.”
Ian McKellen, the actor whose roles range from Gandalf to Macbeth, killed audiences two years in a row at the Old Vic as the Widow Twankey in “Aladdin.” Of course you don’t remember Widow Twankey in the original story or even the Disney movie. She exists only as a British panto character: the owner of a Chinese laundry in Peking, who has two sons: Wishy Washy and Aladdin.
One production in Wimbledon stars Henry Winkler as Captain Hook, and Patrick Duffy is playing Cinderella’s friend Buttons at the New Victoria Theatre in Woking. Yep, Bobby Ewing from “Dallas” and the Fonz. Neither had heard of panto before they were cast.
Anglo extravaganza
We went to England in 2002 for Christmas, because I always had wanted to be in England at Christmas. Years of being an Anglophile had created a great pile of things I wanted to experience: Christmas crackers, mince pies, Boxing Day, the queen’s speech on the telly, and yes, the pantomime.
Mostly we knew about panto from Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Who could ever forget Episode 30, in which two pantomime horses get sacked from their jobs at a merchant bank, fight to the death in a nature film and exchange pistol fire aided by a pantomime goose and a harpoon-throwing Pantomime Princess Margaret?
I had no idea whether pantomime was hopelessly uncool, so I cautiously asked Chris and Helen Middleton, owners of the Yorkshire sheep farm where we were staying, about Christmas events we might like.
Chris wrote back: “We are suckers for the great British tradition of pantomime.” Come to find out, we had picked the perfect place for our panto introduction. One of the best happens annually at the Theatre Royal in York, with Berwick Kaler as dame, writer, director and impresario the past 28 years.
I have some lovely memories from Christmas in Yorkshire. One is a service of lessons and carols in an old stone church in Selby. During the service, tiny children in shepherds’ costumes sang “Away in a Manger.” At its close, the vicar intoned these solemn words: “Mince pies!”
One is our Boxing Day walk to a country pub, the Wheatsheaf in Burn.
And one is the pantomime on Christmas Eve, where beautifully dressed children (including mine) bellowed “He’s behind you!” on cue and ate ice cream at the interval. Kaler appeared after the curtain fell to read letters from the audience and toss out Wagon Wheels, the English equivalent of Moon Pies.
Kaler has said that he doesn’t care for innuendo – he wants everyone in the audience to laugh at the same jokes. But in the performance we saw, the villainous Sheriff of Rottingham rode in on a horse called Edwina, which just happened to be the name of former Prime Minister John Major’s newly discovered mistress. Said the sheriff: “A Major ‘ad her before me!”
Kaler also taught us to speak Geordie, the Newcastle dialect, in which every vowel in each word is pronounced, plus a few: “The tree-un from Pletform Eee-ut is leee-ut.”
It was everything we could have hoped for.
Santa Claus, in the English guise of Father Christmas, found my children in our cozy cottage on a sheep farm, in the light of a coal fire. And every time a certain vegetable shows up in our fridge, Mark brandishes it and announces, “There’s a leek in this tank!” That’s the legacy of pantomime, at least for us.
Lisa Everitt is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Arvada. Contact her at lisaeveritt@comcast.net.
The details
U.K. phone numbers appear as they should be dialed from the United States. In Britain, replace the first five digits with a 0.
An excellent site about British pantomime, including links to several hundred panto productions from Aberdeen to Penzance: its-behind-you.com.
“Cinderella” plays at the York Theatre Royal from Dec. 14 to Feb. 3. Tickets are still available for many dates at 011 44 1904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Join Chris and Helen Middleton, their daughters, cats, dogs, Shetland pony and sheep at Lund Farm, near the village of Gateforth outside Selby, Yorkshire. Lund Farm Cottage sleeps six, Shepherd’s Rest two, with weekend rates from $278. Info: 011 44 1757 228775 or lundfarm.co.uk.
In York, we stayed at The Sycamore Guest House in Bootham. Double rooms with private bath and breakfast from $115. Info: 011 44 1904 624712 or thesycamore.co.uk.
In London, we liked the Arran House Hotel at 77-79 Gower St., near the British Museum and Goodge Street Underground. Rooms from $86 (single with breakfast, bathroom down the hall) to $249 (five-person room with private bath). Info: 011 44 2076 362186 or arranhotellondon.com.
