Get set for the pantomime!
- POSTED ON: 13 Jan, 2019
- TOTAL VIEWS: 934 Views
- POSTED BY: Madhuvanti S. Krishnan
- ARTICLE POINTS: 150 Points
There’s music, there’s comedy, and then there’s musical comedy. That’s a pantomime, for you. It is a stage production designed for entertainment, and was developed in England.
Modern pantomime includes songs, gags, slapstick comedy and dancing. They combine humour with a story which is usually a fairy tale, folk tale or fable. It is a participatory form of theatre — the audience is expected to join in the singing at certain parts, and shout out phrases to performers on stage. Traditionally, it is performed at Christmas or thereabouts.
Traditional stories
The story lines and scripts usually make no direct reference to Christmas, and are almost always based on traditional children’s stories, especially the fairy tales of Charles Perrault, Joseph Jacobs, Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. Some of the more popular pantomime stories include “Cinderella”, “Aladdin”, “Dick Whittington and His Cat”, and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”,”Jack and the Beanstalk”, “Peter Pan”, “Puss in Boots” and “Sleeping Beauty”, “Mother Goose”, to name a few.
Try your hand at these shuffle puzzles to see if you can form the picture of the pantomime.
“Mother Goose“
The story of Mother Goose is possibly the oldest story to be turned into a pantomime. It dates back to an ancient Greek legend about a goose that laid golden eggs. It is also one of the earliest pantomimes seen in Great Britain, nearly 200 years ago.
“Cinderella“
With a wicked stepmother and two jealous stepsisters, who keep her enslaved and in rags, Cinderella doesn’t have a chance of attending the royal ball. When she is upset and has given up all hope, her fairy godmother appears and transforms her into a beautiful princess, who can attend the ball, on the condition that she ought to return before midnight, or the spell will be broken. Cinderella enchants the handsome Prince Charming at the ball, but is forced to flee at midnight, leaving behind nothing but a solitary gold slipper. The prince is determined to find her, and orders his soldiers to find the woman whose feet fit the slipper. All’s well that end’s well when they eventually trace the slipper back to Cinderella.
“Dick Whittington“
Dick Whittington and His Cat is the English folklore surrounding the real-life Richard Whittington, a wealthy merchant and later, Lord Mayor of London. The story describes his rise from a poverty-stricken childhood with the fortune he made through the sale of his cat to a rat-infested country.