50 Fun Facts About Pantomime

What do pantomime audiences shout when a ghost creeps up unseen on the dame and the comic?

'He's behind you!' is built on the bench gag: the dame and the comic sit singing a cheerful song to forget their fears while a ghost circles behind them, and each spots it and bolts until the dame's face scares the ghost away.

Who traditionally plays the pantomime dame, the over-the-top matriarch in big hair and heavy make-up?

A man in drag has played the dame since the part took shape in the 19th century, and the costume parade that George Lacy is credited with inventing can now run to twenty-two outfits in a single show.

Who, by a tradition that grew from laws restricting child actors, plays the pantomime principal boy?

A young woman in tights and thigh boots played the hero for over a century, though the thigh-slapping principal boy has all but vanished. Peter Pan borrowed the convention, with Nina Boucicault the first Peter in 1904.

By a convention from medieval mystery plays, from which side does the pantomime villain enter?

Stage left stood for Hell in the medieval mystery plays, so the villain enters there while the good fairy comes in from stage right, the side of Heaven; stage left is the audience's right.

On which day did Victorian pantomimes customarily open, binding the form to the family Christmas?

Boxing Day was opening night, and at Drury Lane a Victorian pantomime then ran from Christmas to Easter, with stars heading a cast of more than 40.

Which word for knockabout comedy began as Harlequin's two-slat wooden bat in commedia dell'arte?

Slapstick was the batacchio, two slats that crack loudly while passing on little force, and in English pantomime Harlequin struck the scenery with it like a wand to trigger magical scene changes.

Which nickname for a clown honours Grimaldi, the Regency star who made Clown the centre of pantomime?

Joey was Grimaldi's own name for his Clown, whose white base and red cheek triangles most clowns still copy, and hundreds of clowns in full costume attend a memorial service to him every February at an east London church.

Which dame, Aladdin's washerwoman mother, takes her name from an inferior grade of Chinese green tea?

Widow Twankey was christened in 1861 by H. J. Byron after Twankay tea, an 'old, ragged' leaf named for Tunxi in Anhui, the joke being that the widow, like the tea, is past her best.

Which of the Baron's servants in Cinderella is the heroine's best friend, pining hopelessly for her?

Buttons descends from Pedro, the servant Grimaldi played in an 1804 Drury Lane Cinderella billed as 'A new Grand Allegorical Pantomimic Spectacle', a show far from the modern panto in style.

What office do the Bow Bells promise Dick Whittington as they call him back from fleeing the city?

Lord Mayor of London was an office the real Whittington did reach, though he was of high birth and probably never owned a cat; the tale's earliest known chapbook dates only from 1656.

Which arch-villain, first recorded at the Surrey Theatre in 1877, battles Dick Whittington's cat?

King Rat squares off against the Fairy of the Bells, who personifies the London bells that call Dick home; in some versions the cat Tommy sails to Morocco and clears the Sultan's court of rats.

Where in north London, at a stone topped by a cat statue since 1964, does Dick Whittington hear the bells?

Highgate Hill was an 18th-century embellishment: the earliest chapbook, from 1656, has the boy reach only Bunhill, and Highgate lies north, the wrong way for a lad fleeing home towards Gloucester.

What name, fixed in 1813, does the Aladdin pantomime give its villainous sorcerer, Aladdin's false uncle?

Abanazar is the model for Disney's Jafar, and before 1813 the part was billed simply as 'The African Magician', after the original tale's sorcerer from the Maghreb.

What is the giant's henchman, the kidnapper of Jack's princess, traditionally called in Jack and the Beanstalk pantos?

Fleshcreep is the sworn enemy of the fairy who helps Jack, while the giant himself is usually named Blunderbore after a figure from the 18th-century tale Jack the Giant Killer.

Which Cinderella character, the prince's right-hand man, was borrowed from Rossini's opera La Cenerentola?

Dandini reached the pantomime through an 1820 Harlequin and Cinderella that took much of Rossini's plot, and Cinderella's first meeting with the prince comes when she mistakes Dandini for him during a hunt.

Which pair of Cinderella's tormentors are traditionally played as a double dame act?

The Ugly Sisters are the dame turned antagonist, a contrast to the warm matriarchs of Jack and the Beanstalk and the nursemaids of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White; Nigel Ellacott and Peter Robbins played the pair in 28 pantos from 1983.

Which Caribbean nation's National Pantomime, begun in 1941, counted Louise Bennett among its first players?

Jamaica's National Pantomime was founded by the Fowlers, educators of the Little Theatre Movement, and its players have included Rita Marley and the bass Willard White; it still opens the day after Christmas at Kingston's Little Theatre.

Which theatre did John Rich, the silent Harlequin 'Lun', build in 1732 on the profits of his pantomimes?

Covent Garden is often said to have been paid for by The Beggar's Opera, the 1728 hit that 'made Gay rich and Rich gay', but that is a misconception; Rich's magical pantomimes were the money-spinner.

From which language does the word pantomime ultimately come, meaning a dancer who acted 'all' the roles?

Greek pantomimos joined panto- ('all') to mimos, and Rome's version was a solo male dancer in a long silk tunic miming myths to a libretto sung by a singer or chorus.

How many actors share a traditional pantomime horse, a costume descended from 1885's Blondin Donkey act?

Two performers make a pantomime horse, the rear one bent double with arms round the front one's waist, and the Blondin Donkey was named after the tightrope walker famed for crossing Niagara Falls.

Which Drury Lane dame of the 1890s was dubbed 'the King's Jester' after a 1901 command performance at Sandringham?

Dan Leno's ghost is said to haunt Drury Lane, where he earned £200 a pantomime season; in 1880 he had won the world clog-dancing championship in Leeds, taking home a belt weighing 1.26 kg.

Which 'Druriolanus', manager of Drury Lane, started pantomime's tradition of celebrity guest stars?

Augustus Harris was knighted in 1891 not for theatre but for his part in the German Emperor's state visit, and he spent up to £10,000 a show on spectacles that could run five hours.

Which pantomime, rewritten for Drury Lane in 1902, centres on a poor but happy dame tempted with wealth by the Devil?

Mother Goose's 1902 script by J. Hickory Wood became 'the ancestor of all the pantomimes of that title', and its 1806 original at a rival house gave Grimaldi's Clown the hit that eclipsed Harlequin.

What is the messy pantomime routine called, usually a baking or decorating job that ends in flying gunge?

The slosh scene is the surviving trace of the harlequinade that once closed every pantomime; since the 20th century its knockabout has been folded into the main body of the show.

Which Fairy Queen-led set change once turned the pantomime's cast into the characters of the harlequinade?

The transformation scene survives only in Cinderella, where the pumpkin coach is often drawn by real Shetland ponies; in the earliest pantomimes it was Harlequin's own magic that changed the settings.

In the harlequinade, which daughter or ward of Pantaloon elopes with Harlequin as her father gives chase?

Columbine wore the cap and apron of a serving girl, and the chase after her and Harlequin kept essentially the same plot for more than 150 years, gaining only a bumbling policeman.

Pantaloon, the harlequinade's miserly father, descends from Pantalone, a greedy merchant of which Italian city?

Venice's Pantalone, in red tight-fitting vest and breeches, was familiar enough to Londoners for Shakespeare to cite 'the lean and slippered Pantaloon' as the very type of an old man around 1600.

In which year did London's Lyceum Theatre stage the last harlequinade, by then a brief acrobatic epilogue?

1939 ended a chase that had lost its audience by the 1880s, when music hall and comic opera crowded it out and the lovers' scenes dwindled to brief displays of dancing and acrobatics.

Which nursery-rhyme pantomime ran at least 943 performances at New York's Olympic Theatre from 1868, a record run?

Humpty Dumpty was the vehicle of the American clown G. L. Fox, who toured it across North America, and one source puts the New York run at 1,200 performances by its close in 1873.

Which knighted Shakespearean actor donned a frock to play Aladdin's mother at the Old Vic in 2004?

Ian McKellen 'lets down his hair and lifts up his skirt to reveal a nifty pair of legs', wrote the critic Michael Billington, and in 2025 he was back in panto as a video cameo playing the dog Toto at the Pleasance, Islington.

Which Baywatch star took over from Ruby Wax as Genie of the Lamp in Aladdin at Wimbledon in 2009?

Pamela Anderson's genie was one of a relay: Anita Dobson of EastEnders and Paul O'Grady were also booked for the same role in the same run at the New Wimbledon Theatre.

Which Happy Days star played Captain Hook in pantomime from 2006, at Wimbledon, Woking, Milton Keynes and Liverpool?

Henry Winkler was followed onto the Wimbledon plank by David Hasselhoff, whose Hook of 2010 was billed as 'Hoff the Hook' and returned at the Manchester Opera House in 2012.

Which Hollywood veteran made his pantomime debut as Baron Hardup in Cinderella in Sunderland in 2007?

Mickey Rooney was 87 and among the last surviving stars of the silent-film era; he reprised the Baron at Bristol Hippodrome in 2008 and Milton Keynes in 2009.

Which Naked Gun actress played the Wicked Queen in Snow White at Wimbledon in 2012?

Priscilla Presley starred opposite Warwick Davis in what was her pantomime debut, then reprised the Wicked Queen at the Manchester Opera House in 2014; her marriage to Elvis had lasted from 1967 to 1973.

Which pop star played Aladdin in a 1964 London pantomime scored by The Shadows, who were also in the cast?

Cliff Richard's cast album reached number 13 and its lead single 'I Could Easily Fall (in Love with You)' hit number 6; Arthur Askey was his dame, and the Shadows' own 'Genie with the Light Brown Lamp' made number 17.

After a 29-year gap, which West End theatre revived its Christmas panto in 2016 with Cinderella starring Julian Clary?

The London Palladium's revival was produced by Michael Harrison, and its 2017 follow-up, Dick Whittington with Julian Clary as the Spirit of the Bells, won a 2018 Olivier Award.

Which dame wrote, directed and starred in York Theatre Royal's panto from 1977 until retiring in 2019?

Berwick Kaler ended every York show by flinging Wagon Wheels into the stalls like frisbees and handing a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale to a father in the audience; he un-retired in 2021 at the city's Grand Opera House.

Which Frank Matcham music hall in east London, a bingo hall from 1963 to 1984, has staged a celebrated panto since 1988?

Hackney Empire gives free panto tickets to local refuges and carers, and its regular dame Clive Rowe, an Olivier winner for Guys and Dolls, was nominated again in 2008 for his dame there.

Which company, the world's largest pantomime producer with 700-plus shows, sold its panto arm to Crossroads in 2021?

Qdos Entertainment took over the ATG venues' pantomimes from First Family Entertainment in 2017 and at its peak produced 35 a year, before COVID cut the 2020 slate to a handful backed by the National Lottery.

Which 1843 law broke the patent houses' monopoly on spoken drama, letting pantomime fill up with puns and banter?

The Theatres Act freed every licensed house to use dialogue; until then pantomime outside the two patent theatres had been 'dumb show', all dancing and gesture, and the talky fairy-tale opening soon outgrew the silent harlequinade.

Which Royal Navy march had its first airing in Harlequin's Invasion, David Garrick's pantomime of New Year's Eve 1759?

Heart of Oak, with music by William Boyce and words by Garrick himself, celebrates the 'wonderful year' of 1759, when Britain won at Minden, Lagos, Quebec and Quiberon Bay; a Handel soloist, Samuel Thomas Champnes, sang it first.

Which Drury Lane dancing master's 1702 piece The Tavern Bilkers is cited as the first pantomime on the English stage?

John Weaver waited until 1716 to try again with The Loves of Mars and Venus, billed as being 'after the manner of the Antient Pantomimes', and staged a Perseus and Andromeda the same year.

Which actor-manager played an early breeches role, Ralph in Planché's Puss in Boots, at the Olympic Theatre in 1837?

Eliza Vestris's husband Charles Mathews played the cat, and in an era when women hid their legs under long skirts her tights and shorts were considered risqué.

In Peter Pan, which role is traditionally doubled by the actor playing Captain Hook, as Gerald du Maurier did first?

Mr Darling and Hook were paired simply to make full use of one actor, though critics have since read the pairing as the father's harmless bluster set against the pirate's pompous vanity.

Royalties from every Peter Pan panto go to which London children's hospital, given the copyright by Barrie in 1929?

Great Ormond Street's right outlived the copyright: the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 grants the hospital royalties in perpetuity on any public performance or adaptation of the play.

Which outlaw legend's supporting cast is grafted onto Babes in the Wood to lengthen that brief tale?

Robin Hood's cast pads out a tale whose children are simply abandoned by their uncle, wander the woods until they die and are covered with leaves by the birds, which is short work for a family audience.

Which island nation, once a British colony, kept pantomime strong while most ex-colonies dropped it as a colonial relic?

Malta's producers adapted the imported form for Maltese audiences in the early 20th century, whereas in many of Britain's former territories panto was dropped after independence as a symbol of colonial rule.

What is the audience's ritual reply when a pantomime character insists 'Oh yes it is!'?

'Oh no it isn't!' is one half of a call-and-response that audiences are 'encouraged and expected' to join, along with hissing the villain and going 'awwww' for the rejected dame.

Which Grimaldi audience-participation song of 1819 concerns a seller of roasted apples who gets drunk on gin?

Hot Codlins can still be played with your feet: the bronze floor tiles of Grimaldi's coffin-shaped memorial in Joseph Grimaldi Park are tuned so that dancing on them picks out the tune.

Which Dublin theatre has staged a Christmas pantomime every year since 1873, missing only the 2020 season?

The Gaiety opened in November 1871 after just 28 weeks of construction at a cost of £26,000, and the bronze handprints in the pavement beneath its canopy include Pavarotti and Maureen Potter.