97 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 at least 1806, when Samuel Simmons took such a part in London, and the joke depends on it: the audience is meant to see the man under the frock.

Who traditionally plays the pantomime principal boy, the hero of the story?

A young woman played the hero as an accepted convention by the late 19th century, when music hall stars such as Vesta Tilley and Marie Lloyd took the part; Peter Pan's first Peter, in 1904, was Nina Boucicault.

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 the grandest Victorian productions at Drury Lane then ran from Christmas to Easter.

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 the name of Grimaldi's own Clown, whose white face and red cheek triangles clowns still copy; he so dominated the part that later Clowns were all called Joey.

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

Widow Twankey was christened in 1861 by H. J. Byron after Twankay tea, an 'old, ragged' leaf, 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 is named for the gilt buttons on a pageboy's jacket, and the part goes back to Pedro, a servant Grimaldi played in an 1804 Drury Lane Cinderella.

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 does pantomime add to the story of Dick Whittington?

King Rat gives Dick's cat a worthy enemy: in the tale the cat, traditionally called Tommy, rids Morocco of its rats and earns Dick half the Sultan's wealth.

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

Abanazar got his name in an 1813 London production; the Arabian Nights never named the sorcerer, and the first stage Aladdin of 1788 billed him simply as 'The African Magician'.

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

Fleshcreep does the dirty work because a stage giant can barely move: Blunderbore is often an actor on stilts or a huge mechanical figure, so his nimbler toady carries out his bidding.

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.

Pantomime's Cinderella borrows from Rossini's opera but keeps which character the opera swapped for a philosopher?

The Fairy Godmother has no part in Rossini's opera, which drops the magic and hands her work to the prince's old tutor; pantomime took the opera's Baron and valet but kept the fairy.

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

Jamaica's National Pantomime was founded by the educators Henry and Greta Fowler and drew on Jamaican folklore and history in place of English fairy tales; its players have included Rita Marley and the opera singer Willard White.

Which theatre did John Rich, the silent Harlequin 'Lun', build in 1732?

Covent Garden opened in 1732; accounts credit the money to Rich's magical pantomimes or to The Beggar's Opera, the 1728 hit said to have 'made Gay rich and Rich gay'.

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 the Roman original was the opposite of a noisy British panto: one silent masked dancer miming myths while a singer or chorus supplied the words.

The pantomime horse descends from an 1880s donkey act named after which tightrope walker?

Charles Blondin, who crossed Niagara Falls on a rope, lent his name to the Blondin Donkey, a two-man costume that the acrobatic Griffiths brothers made a favourite of the music halls.

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

Dan Leno began as a clog dancer, winning a world championship belt in Leeds in 1880; two years after entertaining the King he suffered a mental breakdown, and he died at 43.

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

Augustus Harris was knighted in 1891 not for his theatre but, as a sheriff of London, for his part in the German Emperor's state visit; his pantomime recruits from the music halls included Marie Lloyd and Vesta Tilley.

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 knockabout of the kind that once filled a separate harlequinade, before that comedy was folded into the story itself.

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 was familiar enough to Londoners for Shakespeare to cite 'the lean and slippered pantaloon' as the very type of an old man in As You Like It.

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 Dallas actress played the Wicked Queen in Snow White at Wimbledon in 2012?

Priscilla Presley had never seen a pantomime when she signed on, so she studied the tradition and came to welcome the Wicked Queen's boos: the more you invite them, she said, the more people join in.

Which pop star played Aladdin in a 1964 London pantomime with his backing band in the cast?

Cliff Richard's Aladdin put the Shadows on stage as Wishee, Washee, Noshee and Poshee, and the score they wrote for it gave him a number 6 hit, 'I Could Easily Fall (in Love with You)'.

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 pantomime for more than 30 years before 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 1717 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 played opposite Charles Mathews as the cat, a year before she married him, 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 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, began adapting British pantomime for its own audiences in the early 1900s?

Malta's pantomime arrived as entertainment for British expatriates, and Maltese producers then remade it for local audiences; the Christmas show at the Manoel Theatre is counted among Britain's legacies there.

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: in the London park named after Grimaldi, casket-shaped beds of bronze floor tiles 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 went up in just 28 weeks in 1871, and its one missed pantomime came in 2020, when COVID-19 pushed The Little Mermaid back a year.

Which Victorian novelist, writing as Boz, edited the memoirs of the great pantomime clown Joseph Grimaldi?

Charles Dickens tidied up another writer's clumsy draft of the clown's life, which rested on Grimaldi's own notes. The illustrated book sold well, to his surprise.

In Peter Pan, which character drinks poison meant for Peter and is revived only by the audience's applause?

Tinker Bell swallows the medicine Hook has tampered with because Peter will not believe her warning. He then turns to the house and begs everyone who believes in fairies to clap.

Which parlour game was the basis of Pantomime Quiz, the American celebrity show first broadcast locally in Los Angeles?

Charades pitted two teams of four against the clock, one player miming a phrase while three teammates guessed. Viewers who sent in a phrase that was used won cash or a gift.

Which award did Pantomime Quiz win as Most Popular Television Program at the prize's very first ceremony?

An Emmy went to the game show while it was still a local broadcast, before any network had picked it up. CBS took it national later that year.

In which country is the traditional British Aladdin pantomime set, despite the tale's Middle Eastern roots?

China is where the story's own opening lines place Aladdin, in one of its unnamed cities. Pantomime kept the setting and added a comic laundry for the hero's family.

Which food did the harlequinade's thieving Clown famously stuff into his pockets while fleeing a bumbling policeman?

Sausages, along with chickens and other props, vanished into Clown's costume to be shared out unfairly later. Harlequin could even wave his wand and turn a dog into sausages.

Which story collection, first translated into English in the early 1700s, gave pantomime Aladdin, Ali Baba and Sinbad?

The Arabian Nights was a bestseller in English, and its tales fed a fashion for all things oriental. Aladdin reached the London stage in 1788.

Which fairy-tale writer of the 1600s published the Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Puss in Boots that pantomime uses?

Charles Perrault's tales also gave the stage Little Red Riding Hood. Rossini's opera of his Cinderella reached London in 1820, the same year as a pantomime of the glass slipper.

Which real animals often pull the heroine's coach on stage in a big Cinderella pantomime's magical change of scene?

Shetland ponies bring the coach on in the one pantomime that still keeps a full magical change of scene. Victorian audiences expected such a spectacle in almost every show.

Which pantomime, taken from a 1719 novel, has a real marooned sailor called Alexander Selkirk behind its hero?

Robinson Crusoe drew on Selkirk's four years alone on a desert island. Drury Lane staged the story as a pantomime in 1796, with the young Grimaldi in the cast.

What are pantomime audiences always encouraged to do when the villain walks on, in contrast to their sighs for victims?

Hiss and jeer is the rule for the baddie, while a wronged character such as the rejected dame earns a long, sympathetic 'aww' from the house.

Which French artist, creator of Bip the Clown, toured the world for 60 years performing wordless pantomime?

Marcel Marceau called his craft the art of silence. Outside Britain and Ireland, the word pantomime usually means his kind of show, not a Christmas musical comedy.

In many pantomime versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, which business does the heroine's mother run?

A circus is the usual setting, and the mother who runs it is the show's dame. Jack and the Beanstalk likewise makes the dame its hero's mother.

Which comic brother does pantomime give Aladdin, a sidekick seen at Drury Lane in 1896?

Wishy Washy began life as Washee-Washee, a clown for the laundry scenes that pantomime worked into the story in the 1890s.

In some Dick Whittington pantomimes, to which country do Dick and his cat Tommy sail, where the cat clears out the rats?

Morocco stands in for the Barbary Coast of the old legend, where a Moorish king buys the ship's whole cargo for a load of gold.

Which name, borrowed from the tale of Jack the Giant Killer, do many stage versions give the Beanstalk giant?

Blunderbore first belonged to that 18th-century tale. The beanstalk story often leaves its giant nameless, so playwrights borrowed one.

Which Have I Got News for You captain joined Julian Clary in all four ITV Panto specials from 1998 to 2002?

Paul Merton and Clary were the only performers in all four, which were filmed at venues including the Old Vic and Brixton Academy.

Which creator of the sitcom Men Behaving Badly wrote all four of ITV's celebrity-packed televised pantomimes?

Simon Nye began as a translator of books on Wagner and Matisse before his comic novel became the sitcom. Famous faces took every main role in his pantomime scripts.

Which double Oscar-winning actress co-produced a 2005 revival of Pantomime Quiz hosted by her then-husband Chad Lowe?

Hilary Swank produced it with Lowe and the director Bob Balaban, setting the game in a New York loft. It was the least successful version of all, gone after five episodes.

Under which new title did Pantomime Quiz return to CBS in 1962, three years after its original run ended?

Stump the Stars opened with Pat Harrington Jr. as emcee, but the show's creator took the host's chair back within three months and kept it to the finale.

Which long-defunct fourth American TV network aired Pantomime Quiz in 1953, a show also seen on CBS, NBC and ABC?

DuMont made the game one of the few series shown on all four networks of television's early years, alongside The Original Amateur Hour and The Ernie Kovacs Show.

In which Canadian city did Ross Petty Productions begin staging Christmas pantomimes at the Elgin Theatre in 1996?

Toronto had already seen pantomimes imported from England at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in the 1980s. Out west, the White Rock Players began an annual one back in 1954.

Which Hungarian-born Hollywood socialite starred in a 1993 pantomime of Cinderella at UCLA's Freud Theatre?

Zsa Zsa Gabor headlined one of the few British-style pantomimes then seen in the United States, where the earliest known examples were two New York Cinderellas of 1808.

Which retired British ocean liner, berthed in Dubai, has a theatre that has staged Christmas pantomimes?

The QE2 joined a tradition that reached the Emirates in 2007. By 2021 there were three pantomimes each Christmas, two in Dubai and one in Abu Dhabi.

Which Swiss city has had an annual English pantomime since 1972, staged by its Amateur Operatic Society?

Geneva got there first, but Basel followed in 1994 with performances in a hangar at the city's airport. British immigrants carried the tradition to both.

Which saint's legend was the loose basis of the Christmas mummers' plays that lent pantomime its stage fights?

St George and his dragon gave the old folk plays their combat and fantastic creatures. They also had coarse humour, role reversal and good defeating evil.

Which white-clad comic servant of the harlequinade grew more sentimental in the 1800s, pining for his master's daughter?

Pierrot became such a favourite that whole troupes later performed in his whiteface and baggy white costume.

Which puppet descends from the Neapolitan clown Pulcinella, a commedia dell'arte relative of pantomime's Harlequin?

Mr Punch arrived by way of the anglicised name Punchinello, and his show was first recorded in England in 1662.

At which London theatre, later famous for dance, did the child Joseph Grimaldi play monkeys, imps and demons?

Sadler's Wells drew a boisterous working-class crowd, while Drury Lane, where the boy also appeared, played to the wealthy.

Which legendary scholar of magic was the subject of The Necromancer, John Rich's hit pantomime of the 1720s?

Doctor Faustus gave John Rich one of his biggest hits: The Necromancer drew crowds to his theatre at Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Which pantomime animal, usually two actors sharing one costume, does Jack swap for beans in Jack and the Beanstalk?

A cow needs one actor for the head and front legs and another for the body and back legs. The same trick can produce a camel if the story's setting calls for one.

Which riverside London district has hosted an annual charity race for pantomime horses?

Greenwich stages the London Pantomime Horse Race, run by two-person teams in costume. The rear runner bends at the waist and can barely see.

In which ancient empire did solo masked pantomime dancers have fans who wore badges and brawled with rival groups?

Rome adored and despised its pantomime dancers, who were usually slaves or freedmen. One performer danced a whole myth to a sung story and the beat of an iron-shod shoe.

Which Scottish city's King's Theatre was the pantomime home of the comedians Stanley Baxter and Rikki Fulton?

Glasgow saw Baxter's famously lavish productions, and Fulton made numerous appearances there too. Both were award-winning comic actors as well as dames.

Which deadpan comedian and pantomime dame is said to have based his Ada on Norman Evans's nosy Fanny Fairbottom?

Les Dawson was known for a curmudgeonly persona. Evans's gossiping neighbour, hugely popular in the sketch show Mr Tower of London, allegedly gave him the idea.

Which Poirot actor narrated the BBC's 2016 television version of Peter Pan Goes Wrong, about a disastrous amateur show?

David Suchet guest-starred as the narrator while a hapless drama society wrecked Barrie's play around him. The stage hit came from the makers of The Play That Goes Wrong.

Which northern Italian city is the traditional home of Arlecchino, the servant who became pantomime's Harlequin?

Bergamo is the city tied to the best-known of the commedia dell'arte's comic servants. John Rich built the English harlequinade around him in the early 1700s.

Which Victorian stage device used a counterweight to fire a pantomime actor up through the floor for a flying entrance?

Star trap entrances were magical but perilous, launched from a platform beneath the boards. Stagehands coordinated traps and scene changes with whistle signals.

Which music-hall hit did Lottie Collins sing as the show-stopper of an 1891 pantomime of Dick Whittington?

Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay won over audiences and critics alike. Music-hall names often paused the plot for a turn of their own, be it a song, a can-can or a saxophone solo.

Which music-hall star, famous for his Big-Boot Dance, appeared in three Drury Lane pantomimes between 1891 and 1893?

Little Tich danced in boots with soles 28 inches long, standing on their tips and leaning at extraordinary angles. He developed the routine on an American tour in the 1880s.

Which star of the sitcom Are You Being Served made his name in a celebrated Ugly Sister act with Barry Howard?

John Inman went on to become one of Britain's best-loved dames, while television audiences knew him as the menswear assistant Mr Humphries.

Which male impersonator, known in wartime as England's greatest recruiting sergeant, was also a pantomime star?

Vesta Tilley usually played dandies and fops, and in wartime she sang patriotic songs dressed in khaki to promote enlistment drives.

What were the characters made of in the miniature pantomimes that Victorian families staged at home?

Cardboard figures and abbreviated scripts let family and friends perform pantomimes in toy theatres, using printed character sheets from makers such as Pollock's.

In H. J. Byron's Dick Whittington pantomime of 1862, in which newsworthy craft did the villain chase the hero?

A hot air balloon was topical: that year two English balloonists made the news by climbing to a record-breaking altitude. Pantomime treated anything in the news as fair game.

What name did Victorian pantomime give the elaborate animal costumes worn by specialists such as Charles Lauri?

Skins made whole careers: Lauri, the 'Garrick of Animal Mimes', kept a poodle at home and learned nearly all his tricks from it before playing one on stage.

Before pantomime moved Aladdin's mother into a laundry in the 1890s, she was usually the widow of which tradesman?

A tailor is her late husband in the original tale, and most stage versions up to 1891 kept her in the trade, with rare detours to a newspaper shop and a fishmonger's.

Which cabaret star of more than 50 pantomimes is called the first glamorous dame, designing all his own costumes?

Douglas Byng was a noted revue artiste as well. Before him, the dame's obvious masculinity under the frock was an essential part of the gag.

What were the clothes of Harlequin, the commedia dell'arte's masked rogue with a magic bat, originally made of?

Patches of many colours made up his motley. One early player also wore a hare's tail on his cap, to signal the character's cowardice.

Which cult film's rowdy screenings did the Scottish comedian Craig Ferguson liken to pantomime's audience participation?

The Rocky Horror Picture Show was his shorthand for the shouting, in a 2020 memoir that summed pantomime up as folk and fairy tales loosely retold as knockabout musical comedy.

Which singer, billed as the Queen of the Music Halls, was among the variety names brought into Drury Lane pantomimes?

Marie Lloyd and her fellow music-hall names were the celebrities of their day, bringing new audiences and a raucous energy to carefully staged productions.