Pantomime: History and Key Facts

Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment, generally combining broad and topical humour and cross-dressing actors with a story more or less based on a well-known fairy tale, fable or folk tale. Pantomime is a participatory form of theatre developed in England in the 18th century in which the audience is encouraged and expected to sing along with certain parts of the music and to shout out phrases to the performers.

The origins of pantomime reach back to ancient Greek classical theatre. It developed partly from the 16th century commedia dell'arte tradition of Italy and partly from other European and British stage traditions, such as 17th-century masques and music hall. An important part of the pantomime, until the late 19th century, was the harlequinade. Modern pantomime is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speaking countries, especially during the Christmas and New Year season, and includes songs, gags, slapstick comedy and dancing.

Outside the British Isles, the word "pantomime" is often understood to mean miming, rather than the theatrical form described here.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Pantomime by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.