Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.
To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser.
Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts
38 PANTOMIME2022 •
A central character of the traditional British pantomime is, in fact, the audience. The extract above, from Iain Lauchlan's Snow White, produced by Imagine at the Halifax Victoria Theatre (2018), highlights how the writer weaves the audience's role into the very fabric of the dramaturgy, knowing that they will implicitly respond in a certain way, sans rehearsal. Whilst the Oxford English Dictionary assigns to the audience the role of 'giving ear' (OED 1989, I: 77), contemporary British pantomime audiences are not merely passive, simply listening to, or watching, the genre. Tracing certain historical antecedents of the genre from its embryonic roots in 1717, this piece posits that the relationship with its audience ensures they are an integral part of advancing the plot (which concludes with the triumph of good over evil); a crucial participant in comedy routines and call-and-responses, and vocally announcing pleasure or displeasure at the arrival of the 'goodies' or 'baddies.' Yet, this interdependency is structured in a way as to let the audience feel they are in control, whereas their part is carefully constructed throughout the writing and rehearsal stages. The following discussion is in part a personal response from the standpoint of my experiences as a director of pantomime, as well as an academic one that draws upon both 'ghosting' and cultural materialism. To this end, I set out some of the implications for practitioners navigating this area, drawing on interviews with current practitioners, including Richard Cheshire, Brian Conley and Gary Wilmot. For readers not conversant with British pantomime, certain elements of the above opening paragraph may seem alien. A genre in itself, and separate to the gestural language of the French form, pantomime is essentially European, being originally influenced by the dance drama (as opposed to logocentric work) of the Italian Night Scenes that visited London from France in the early eighteenth century and the stock plot structure and characters from the Italian commedia dell'arte. Gerald Frow's Oh Yes It Is! A History of Pantomime (1985) includes a comprehensive overview and I encourage readers not familiar with the genre to begin there. Initially using myths and legends, from the late-eighteenth century this changed and
Studies in Theatre and Performance
The Death of the Dame? Tales from the National Database of Pantomime Performance2015 •
In 2011 I decided to create a database of modern pantomime performance that could be populated by the industry. As a researcher working in the field of modern British pantomime, I was frustrated by the difficulty of obtaining cross-industry data about previous seasons; newspaper and trade listings are often incomplete and usually provide only basic information about the cast and key creatives. After two years of planning, the National Database of Pantomime Performance was launched in December 2013, attracting much attention from the UK press, who reported a decline in ‘traditional’ practices relating to the roles of Dame and Principal Boy. Using the database’s statistics I respond to these reports and shed further light on findings from the 2013 pantomime season.
The English Christmas Pantomime is the quintessential entertainment involving the audience and encouraging their active participation in the happenings on stage. It has been presented for the past two and a half centuries and has, of course, changed in both form and content over that time, yet still attracts and holds its particular audience. This chapter explores why and how the audience has influenced and participated in the show across the years, causing changes in both presentation and casting while continuing to expect traditional elements. Paradoxically there is little evidence for the ways in which audiences join in a pantomime performance yet there is a tradition of particular kinds of behaviour and modern presenters know they need to include certain characters and dialogue which appear to be rooted in particular actions or ways of presentation in the past. In order to examine audience responses today it is necessary to give some description of the origins of the genre in order to understand the traditions that the present day audiences expect to find honoured. The chapter, therefore, examines the historical background and follows through those links from the past to see both why they have endured and what the expected response is to each manifestation. This can only be relative and conjectural since no direct academic study has been made in this field.
Book review, Sabee, O. (2018). La Querelle des Pantomimes: Danse, culture, et société dans l'Europe des Lumières by Arianna Fabbricatore. 2017. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. 471 pp., b/w illustrations, index, appendices. Dance Research Journal, 50(1), 118-121.
Palgrave Communications
Monsters and the pantomime2020 •
Monsters within British pantomime are ubiquitous creatures, from the ogre in the castle of Puss in Boots to the Giant at the top of the beanstalk, and as personified in the monstrous acts of Wicked Stepmothers, frightening Barons and diabolical henchmen. The popularity of pantomime means that it is often the first encounter that a child has with a monster in material form, sharing the same physical space: a theatre. Bruno Bettelheim (1991) argues that fairytales, from where many pantomimes are drawn, are our first negotiations with the monstrous. In pantomime, the audience are complicit in the act of finding, chasing and dealing with the monster, and the ethical positioning of this by writers and directors is paramount in guiding us to understand how we may deal with the 'other' in our own lives. This paper critically interrogates the threat posed by these monsters when invested with a materiality in performance. In the first instance, I explore the interplay between stage space and the representation of the monster and how this relates to my professional experience of directing over twenty-five professional pantomimes in the United Kingdom since 1999. Tracing this spatial dynamic between monster and audience to the medieval stage and the ludic dimension to the staging of the devils in the mystery play, the paper argues that there is a long-reaching historical antecedent to the staging of evil that informs and inspires spatial practices in modern-day pantomime. Key questions are: to what extent have pantomimes historically presented and rehearsed the threat posed by the monster in order to contain that threat?; What ethical considerations do producers, writers and directors now face in the contemporary pantomime? Finally, to what extent does the popular form of pantomime itself matter as a vehicle for enabling audiences both young and old to confront the monstrous Other?
Journal for Eighteenth-century Studies
Pantomime, Harlequinades and Children in Late Eighteenth-Century Britain: Playing in the Text2006 •
This paper is a compendium of several scattered posts that apeared on the blog "Unprofessional Translation". It traces the histories of several stories from medieval Arabia and 17th-century France which, by way of translations and adaptations, found their way to the British Christmas theatre. The stories are: Aladdin, Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.
Theatre, Dance and Performance Training
From Mother Goose to master: training networks and knowledge transfer in contemporary British pantomime2017 •
This article builds upon the first UK pantomime training survey conducted in 2013 which saw 50 practitioners participate in an online questionnaire about their personal training route into the industry and pantomime career to date. Using data from the survey, as well as interviews with pantomime practitioners and performer training institutes, the article seeks to identify the industry's formal and informal training routes and thereby explore the transmission of genre conventions through pantomime’s complex network of practitioners. Paying particular attention to the role of pantomime Dame, this article also seeks to examine the ways in which training and practitioners contribute to and influence the genre’s evolutionary course. By tracking and tracing performers’ career trajectories via the genealogical tool of the family tree, key practitioners will be identified and their influence and influences explored in an examination of the apprentice‒master‒expert relationship. The inheritance, adaptation and adoption of practices combined with its embracing of new trends, forms and fashions makes pantomime a multi-layered performance genre. That this can be traced through the industry's networks of knowledge transfer and in performance via inherited and influenced practice not only allows us to excavate pantomime's past, but also experience it in contemporary performance.
2017 •
Journal of Heterocyclic Chemistry
1,2,4-Triazincs XIII. The bond lengths and bond angles of a 1,2,4-triazine1974 •
Physics of the Dark Universe
Particle collisions in ergoregion of braneworld Kerr black hole2019 •
Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development
Taking control of word of mouth marketing: the case of an entrepreneurial hotelier2002 •
Turkish Journal of Zoology
Spotted ash looper, Abraxas pantaria (L.) (Lepidoptera: Geometridae), a new ash pest in TurkeyJournal of Clinical Investigation
Mutation of the sequestosome 1 (p62) gene increases osteoclastogenesis but does not induce Paget disease2007 •
Journal of Algebra
Corrigendum to “Inflectional loci of quadric fibrations” [J. Algebra 441 (2015) 363–397]2018 •
Journal of advances in vetbio science and techniques
Inspiration in the medical science and art: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk2020 •
Frontiers in Endocrinology
Guidelines for Biobanking of Bone Marrow Adipose Tissue and Related Cell Types: Report of the Biobanking Working Group of the International Bone Marrow Adiposity Society2021 •
Revista Gestão Organizacional
Predisposição À Inovação Frugal: Análise De Fatores Diferenciais Em Pequenas e Médias EmpresasIndian Journal of Pharmacy Practice
Coconut Oil as a Therapeutic agent in Medication Induced Contact Dermatitis2020 •
Climate of the Past Discussions
Terrestrial biosphere changes over the last 120 kyr and their impact on ocean δ 13C2015 •
ACS Applied Nano Materials
Biomimetic Polymer-Based Electrochemical Sensor Using Methyl Blue-Adsorbed Reduced Graphene Oxide and Functionalized Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes for Trace Sensing of Cyanocobalamin2018 •
Retina-the Journal of Retinal and Vitreous Diseases
1990 Year Book of Ophthalmology1991 •
Biomedical Research-tokyo
Evaluation of the cement/dentin thickness of the mesiobuccal root of maxillary first molars by optical microscopy in a Chilean sample2017 •
2006 •
Electronic Notes in Discrete Mathematics
Large Convex Cones in Hypercubes2005 •