Abstract
The modern form of pantomime evolved in the late 1890s and early 1900s and owes a great deal to the Drury Lane pantomimes of J. Hickory Wood and Arthur Collins. George M. Slater wrote an author’s note in his 1916 pantomime Boy Blue that suggests that ‘nowadays the ideal of the pantomime author and producer is only to be attained by the coherent exploitation of a story in which magic and fairy powers are incorporated with humorous interludes (if possible germane to the plot) whilst endeavouring “to point a moral and adorn a tale”’.1 This is remarkably similar to the sentiments expressed by contemporary writers and producers. Chris Lillicrap begins writing with ‘a strong story’, but he argues that the ideal mix is that there is something, whether verbal comedy, slapstick, variety, song or dance, for all the family.2 Producing the right combination is a difficult juggling act for, as Gerald Frow remarks:
The balance is a fine one and it shifts a good deal from generation to generation, production to production. All too frequently it lurches in the direction of the star or stars, but on occasion it lurches equally fatally in the direction of the story, to provide a singularly dull evening devoted entirely to what is pretty, whimsical and fantastical.3
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Notes
Gerald Frow, ‘Oh, yes it is!’ A History of Pantomime (London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1985), pp. 181–2.
V. C. Clinton-Baddeley, Some Pantomime Pedigrees (London: The Society for Theatre Research, 1963), p. 31
Derek Salberg, Once upon a Pantomime (Luton: Cortney Publications, 1981).
Gyles Brandreth ‘Oh yes it is!’ Sunday Telegraph Review December 10, 2000, pp. 1–2.
Baz Kershaw (ed.) The Cambridge History of British Theatre Volume 3, Since 1895 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 301.
Tracy C. Davis The Economics of the British Stage 1800–1914(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 349.
Robbins, Slapstick and Sausages: The Evolution of British Pantomime (Tiverton: Trapdoor Publications, 2002), p. 200.
V. C. Clinton-Baddeley, Cinderella: or Love makes the world go round. (London: Samuel French, 1952).
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© 2010 Millie Taylor
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Taylor, M. (2010). Continuity and Transformation in Twentieth-century Pantomime. In: Davis, J. (eds) Victorian Pantomime. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230291782_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230291782_12
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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