[Magdalen] Please! Clap your hands!

[Sally Davies]

I've grown up with the British Pantomime tradition, in which the romantic
male lead is traditionally played by a woman, as is the romantic female
lead, and there's a "Dame" who is an older woman played by a man in drag.

Pantomime is alive and well in Johannesburg where as it happens, the
locally famous Panto director Janice Honeyman will be producing Peter Pan
this Christmas season.
http://www.joburgtheatre.com/en-GB/shows/peter%20pan/info From the pictures
it looks as though Peter is a handsome adult man not a boy or a woman, but
the Dame looks traditional as does the animal character played by two
humans in one costume. The Panto will be broadcast on our TV over Christmas
and I'll make sure not to miss it - but it's not the same as catching the
atmosphere and the visual feast in the theatre. Not this year; but we are
going to Cape Town later this month to see a much praised production of War
Horse.

Panto is full of slapstick humour, dreadful puns and gags to delight the
kids, as well as pure theatre magic, the clever use of topical jokes, digs
at political or showbiz figures, and recent musical hits as well as old
favourites. And there's a risque undertone to much of the humour so that
adults get it and laugh whilst the kids are oblivious. Another tradition is
that the audience gets involved in warning good characters, "he's behind
you!" It's also common, especially in England, for celebrities who are not
actors to take on a Panto role, often as a suitor to the Dame or as a
villain.

I love it all including the "pantomime boy"!  One year, between jobs, Keith
worked Sound production on a Honeyman pantomime ("Jack and the Beanstalk")
and I ended up seeing the show over 30 times. I never got tired of it
though the director, Honeyman's girlfriend at the time, was a
total nightmare.

Sally

On Friday, 5 December 2014, Jim Guthrie <jguthrie at pipeline.com> wrote:

> It's like grown women playing Hansel in H&G, or even worse, Amahl.
>
> However, for the "never grow up" Peter Pan, a grown-up seems okay.
>
> Cheers,
> Jim
>
>