[Magdalen] Please! Clap your hands!

[Sally Davies]

Well, there are actual Dames who have been given that title as an honour by
the Queen, e.g. Dame Judy Dench.

Another word that seems to have migrated given that Shakespeare used a form
of it as a derogatory term 'mother" - Sycorax is described as Caliban's
"dam".  Maybe the Pantomime Dame is derivative of that, or just at one time
a common form of address for older women?

Pantomimes are set to fairy tales and are romances so they do have a
serious side, in any case it is hard to imagine Peter Pan without that
dark undercurrent since it's all about the resourcefulness of children in
various forms of  adult-generated distress.

Sally d

On Saturday, 6 December 2014, Grace Cangialosi <gracecan at gmail.com> wrote:

> Oh, hence Dame Edna!
>
> > On Dec 5, 2014, at 5:25 PM, Sally Davies <sally.davies at gmail.com
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >
> > 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.
> >
>
>