Outlandish costumes, broad comedy, celebrity turns and audience participation – the now-familiar trappings of the classic British panto owe much to the enterprising Victorians, whose innovations cemented the popular art-form that we know and love today. Pantomime's origins.

Dec 20, 2021 · To outsiders, it must seem absolutely bonkers, but the great British pantomime has been drawing crowds for centuries. This uniquely British phenomenon is rooted in Italian commedia dell’arte, with influences from medieval mummers plays and a dash of Victorian spectacle for good measure.

Pantomime was an enduringly popular entertainment in the Victorian era, and counted Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, William Gladstone and John Ruskin among its fans.

During Victorian era, the most important part of pantomime was the harlequinade (meaning that part of a pantomime in which the harlequin and clown play the principal parts). What is a pantomime? Pantomime is a theatrical performance, designed for family entertainment in the sixteenth century.

Outlandish costumes, broad comedy, celebrity turns and audience participation – the now-familiar trappings of the classic British panto owe much to the enterprising Victorians, whose innovations cemented the popular art-form that we know and love today.

and The Ancient World on the Victorian and Edwardian Stage (2009), and co-author (with Katherine Newey, 2010) of John Ruskin and the Victorian Theatre. He is currently engaged with Professor Kate Newey on an AHRC research project on …

Featuring contributions by new and established nineteenth-century theatre scholars, this collection of critical essays is the first of its kind devoted solely to Victorian pantomime. It takes us through the various manifestations of British pantomime in the Victorian period and its ambivalent relationship with Victorian values.

study of victorian popular culture, for “throughout the nineteenth century pantomime was one of the most successful and commercially viable forms of popular entertain-ment” (1). the best beginning on filling this hole is one that makes more widely known the facts of what victorian pantomime was. In a series of discussions both accessible to

We show how the Christmas entertainment still so popular today developed into this familiar form in the Victorian period. We explore the roots of Victorian pantomime in the work of the most famous Clown, Joseph Grimaldi ("Joey"), and the spectacle and lavishness of the stages and settings of pantomime.

Jul 3, 2017 · Contemporary illustrations of Victorian pantomime (12 images, 1845) Preparations for a Pantomime (1866) Allusions to Victorian pantomime in contemporary literature