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A Brief History of Pantomime
When you read the programme notes of a
pantomime you are sure to be informed that pantomime as an art form it is very
old and can be traced back at least to the Romans of pre-Christian times.
However, you will be pleased to discover that 'Pantomime is not Pantomime',
certainly not as we know it and as the Romans knew it. The 'panto' bit means
'all', and 'mime' has the usual meaning - a story told in actions, without words.
The Roman form of Pantomime consisted of a single actor performing a story in
mime, using a series of masks to represent all the characters in the play. The
ubiquitous chorus explained the story to the spectators in rhyme and/or song.
Recognisable as the panto we all know and love? I should Coco!
So how did the Christmas entertainment we have today acquire the name Pantomime
at all? The answer is that no one really knows, and it probably came about by a
series of coincidences and the influence of a very small number of very strong
willed ACTORS.
Between 1660 and 1843 only two theatres in London were allowed to put on plays
with prose. Other theatres had to put on other forms of entertainment to
survive, such as music and dance, circus, and stories told in rhyming couplets
and mime. Sometimes these proved more popular than the plays so that it was the
Theatre Royal Drury Lane, one of the licensed theatres, which put on the first
performance of an entertainment with pantomime in the title in 1717.
However, the forerunner of our modern
pantomime can probably be traced back to JOHN RICH, who staged harlequinades in
the 1750s. Performances started with an introduction in rhyming couplets,
followed by a transformation scene into the harlequinade. The harlequinade was
essentially the same story, in which handsome Harlequin (left) runs away with
the beautiful Columbine who has been pledged by her father to an old man called Pantoloon.
The story was told in mime and John Rich developed the Harlequin character to a
very high level and received tremendous critical acclaim.
As the story of harlequin was so formalised, the actions became wilder as the
characters ran through walls and jumped through windows. Different theatre
managers competed with each other to produce the wildest scenes. This form of
entertainment evolved steadily over the next 50 years, until the next influencial
figure JOE GRIMALDI made his stage debut as Clown on Easter Monday in the year
1800. The play was 'Peter Wilkins or Harlequin in the Flying World'. Joe was an
instant success and from that time on Clown became the dominant character in the
harlequinade, although the basic story did not change. 'Business' with a red
hot poker and a string of sausages became the 'norm' just as there are 'norms'
in every pantomime today and many of the routines in pantomime can trace their
origins to the antics of Joe Grimaldi and other clowns of that era. Grimaldi
himself worked almost until his death in 1837
Over a period of time the introduction to the harlequinade increased in length
and complexity, and many of the stories we use in pantomimes today were
introduced. By the mid
1800s the stories of Cinderella, Aladdin, Puss-in-boots, Jack and the Beanstalk and many others
had been used for the introduction, with
the transformation of the characters into the harlequinade coming later in the
performance and the
harlequinade itself becoming shorter and shorter. In 1830 James Planche began working with
LUCY VESTRIS putting on 'burlesque and burletta extravaganzas' with stories
based on similar fairy tales as those used in pantomimes. Burlesques were more
colourful than the pantomimes of the day and included dancing girls and very
extravagant sets.
Lucy Vestris was already
famous for taking on roles where she dressed as a man, and introduced the first
female principal boy into pantomime,
although she did not transform into
Harlequin, who continued to be played by a man. By this time pantomime had
become a part of the 'traditional' Christmas scene and Planche and Vestris had
to adapt their form of entertainment to be a pantomime when performed over the Christmas
season. There was
some debate in Victorian society as to whether this kind of entertainment,
pantomime or no, was suitable for young children to watch. The year 1837 saw
Lucy Vestris as the hero Ralph in Puss-in-boots. Female Principal Boys became
the norm in pantomimes of this era, a tradition which has continued into modern
pantomimes (right)
A major event in the theatre in 1843 saw a change in the law to widen the number
of theatres able to put on plays with dialogue, so that pantomimes were released
from rhyming couplets, although they are still used by fairies and demons,
especially in the opening of the pantomime.
WILLIAM BEVERLEY was responsible for the introduction of the transformation
scene into pantomime. In Planche's 'Island of Jewels' in 1849 he designed a
scene in which a desert island turned into the Island of Jewels of the title.
This was the final act of the performance, whereas today the transformation
scene generally occurs in the last scene before the interval.
The final piece in the
pantomime jigsaw came at the beginning of the 20th Century, in 1902 , when
DAN LENO took the part of Mother Goose and set the standard for
subsequent pantomime dames. A modern pantomime dame is shown below,
The harlequinade had just about died out by 1900, having survived in the
British theatre for around 150 years. If we place the start of 'modern'
pantomime at Dan Leno in 1900, then we can say it is starting on its second
century of existence. If we place it as starting from 'A New and Dramatick
Entertainment of Dancing after the Manner of Ancient Pantomimes called the Loves
of Mars and Venus' which opened at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 2nd March
1717, then pantomime is heading for its 300th birthday in 15 years time. Are we
going to have a party? O yes we are!!
There is a wide selection of books available about pantomime although most of
them are out of print and can only be obtained from your local library. Two very
useful ones are:
A.E.Wilson 'The Story of Pantomime' London 1949
Gyles Brandreth 'Discovering Pantomime' London 1973
Both these books are dated now, and have not taken into account the changes
that have occurred in panto in recent years. The major impact in the
professional theatre has been to introduce stars from TV, including 'soap
operas' and pop stars
created from TV competitions. These stars are well know to the public who like to see them in real life. The pantomime itself may be affected by the presence of these stars especially if they are so highly paid that other essential items such as script, scenery or costumes suffer as a result. Only the theatre going public can judge. In general the female Principal Boy has been replaced by a man, but the tradition of the dame and/or the ugly sisters is still going strong. Peter Pan is now very popular as a pantomime theme and here Peter is played by a woman. In amateur theatre women performers generally outnumber men and the tradition of the female Principal Boy continues.