Welsand's in London

A Pantomime, an English Tradition

We were told that we have to go to a pantomine, it is an English tradition. So we attended Dick Whittington and His Cat at the Barbican Theatre through the Hampstead Women's Club. Dick Whittington was a real person and served three terms as Lord Mayor of London.

What is a pantomime you ask? I had no idea either...This English tradition dates back at least 100 years. They are always and only around Christmas time and nearly always have stories based around well known children's stories. They are very audience interactive. You certainly boo the villian but you should also have several arguments between the characters and audience. Example:
Wicken Queen in Snow White, "I am the fairest of them all!"
Audience: "Oh no you're not!"
Queen: "Oh yes I am"
Audience: "Oh no you're not!"

Another traditional one is the 'behind you' routine. "It's behind you!" "You're just having me on" and so on until the character turns around. Other elements of the panto are slapstick, sounds like drag is usually included and part of the fun. For example, Sarah the Cook was a man and Dick Whittington himself was played by a female.

The costumes were great. The audience participation interesting. Theatre was nice. There was lots of loud noise, some fireworks, and scary rats, which Sophie was fine with. We happened to be watching a little girl in Sophie's playgroup while her mum was having a baby (which poor thing took 4 days, another story in itself) and she got really scared and freaked out, so after 30 minutes she was done. Jeremy and Sophie stayed and finished the first half while Margot and I walked around the lobby. For the second half we all watched the show in the television room where you could kinda see and kinda hear what was going on, but not well. The kids were thrilled to be running around the room so they were happy. We got the idea of the panto anyway and learned about Dick Whittington, another English experience.

posted by Chris @ 8:38 PM