tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/pantomimes-13639/articles
Pantomimes – The Conversation
2021-11-26T00:20:15Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/171728
2021-11-26T00:20:15Z
2021-11-26T00:20:15Z
Belvoir’s The Boomkak Panto is a joyous, subversive and Australian twist on the classic Christmas tradition
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434042/original/file-20211125-15-tn2t5w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Belvoir/Brett Boardman</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This review contains spoilers.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: The Boomkak Panto, directed by Richard Carroll and Virginia Gay, Belvoir</em></p>
<p>The great Victorian playwright George Bernard Shaw was not an admirer of pantomimes. <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=ULOADAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false">He wrote in 1897</a> that this dramatic genre is “a glittering, noisy void”, which worries “the physical senses without any recreative appeal to the emotions and through them to the intellect”.</p>
<p>What value, then, can there be to a pantomime? As Virginia Gay and Richard Carroll’s exuberant The Boomkak Panto shows, pantomime as a genre may be utterly bonkers and fundamentally nonsensical, but it offers audiences the possibility of irreverence, joy and, most importantly, community.</p>
<p>The Boomkak Panto centres on the inhabitants of the fictional “Little Aussie Town™” of Boomkak, who are fighting to save their home from the evil Big Developer’s scheme of building a freeway, high-density housing or a casino. </p>
<p>In classic meta-theatrical tradition à la <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/the-muppets-2">The Muppets</a>, the townspeople plan to put on a panto to raise money and save their town.</p>
<h2>No pretence to realism</h2>
<p>For the uninitiated, pantomime – or panto, as it is more affectionately called – is a type of British theatrical entertainment mainly for children played around Christmas. They are comedic retellings of fairy tales and nursery rhymes, from Mother Goose to Cinderella. </p>
<p>There’s song and dance, slapstick, extravagant sets and outrageous costumes, enormous casts, audience participation, clowning, cross-dressing, puns galore, satirical topical references – and no pretence to realism. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433833/original/file-20211125-25-14e7xmi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Production image, a play rehearsal" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433833/original/file-20211125-25-14e7xmi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433833/original/file-20211125-25-14e7xmi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433833/original/file-20211125-25-14e7xmi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433833/original/file-20211125-25-14e7xmi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433833/original/file-20211125-25-14e7xmi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433833/original/file-20211125-25-14e7xmi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433833/original/file-20211125-25-14e7xmi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There’s song and dance, slapstick, enormous casts and puns galore.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Belvoir/Brett Boardman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pantomime, as the anti-panto Alison (Virginia Gay, who also wrote and co-directed the production) tell us, is void of structure, tone, logic, emotion and time, where “things seem to happen without cause or effect”. Especially when the villain is somehow trounced, the lovers marry and order is magically restored at the happy ending.</p>
<p>Although pantomime is now a distinctly British art form, it has its origins in the Italian <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/commedia-dellarte"><em>commedia dell’arte</em></a>, a masked, clowning style of acting, which was nativized in England as the Regency harlequinade. </p>
<p>During the Victorian period – the heyday of panto – the entertainment was transformed into an extravagant spectacular. While the genre is still popular throughout Britain, you would be hard pressed to find a panto in Australia today. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-the-pantomime-and-why-its-about-so-much-more-than-blokes-in-dresses-69683">A brief history of the pantomime – and why it's about so much more than 'blokes in dresses'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>How, then, do you refresh pantomime for a modern Australian audience? You make it a queer love story set in the Outback, of course.</p>
<h2>Gender play</h2>
<p>The true heart of the show is the love story between Zoe (Zoe Terakes) and Yazmin (Mary Soudi). Zoe is a young queer person who has found their identity. Yazmin is the daughter of an Iranian refugee who feels the pressure of living up to her mother’s high expectations.</p>
<p>There has always been something subversive about panto, particularly when it comes to its carnivalesque play with gender. </p>
<p>Traditionally, the panto’s protagonist is the prince, known as the Principal Boy – although the audience is perfectly aware this strapping lad is actually a woman in men’s clothing. </p>
<p>(This type of casting is known as a <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095525862">breeches role</a>, which emerged in the 1660s with the introduction of the English actress, but it was mostly an excuse to show women’s legs in tights.)</p>
<p>There is also the Panto Dame, a middle-aged man in campy drag, playing a matronly woman always on the hunt for a new husband. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434036/original/file-20211125-19-yfr0t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Production image: the evil developer." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434036/original/file-20211125-19-yfr0t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434036/original/file-20211125-19-yfr0t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434036/original/file-20211125-19-yfr0t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434036/original/file-20211125-19-yfr0t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434036/original/file-20211125-19-yfr0t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434036/original/file-20211125-19-yfr0t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434036/original/file-20211125-19-yfr0t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Everything is heightened at the panto.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Belvoir/Brett Boardman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The reversals of gender in pantomime highlight and parody rituals of masculinity and femininity, and the extent to which gendered identity is performed. But it also relies on sexist reproductions of gender, presenting women’s bodies as either highly sexualised or grotesque.</p>
<p>One of The Boomkak Panto’s subversive innovations is its treatment of gender. Rather than having the Principal Boy as a sexualised woman who just happens to be in boy’s clothing, the play’s hero is the non-binary Zoe. Their gender identity isn’t performed to the audience for laughs, but with heart and empathy. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433832/original/file-20211125-23-e8mq20.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two people lean in to kiss." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433832/original/file-20211125-23-e8mq20.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433832/original/file-20211125-23-e8mq20.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433832/original/file-20211125-23-e8mq20.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433832/original/file-20211125-23-e8mq20.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433832/original/file-20211125-23-e8mq20.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433832/original/file-20211125-23-e8mq20.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433832/original/file-20211125-23-e8mq20.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">At the heart of the story is the relationship between Zoe and Yazmin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Belvoir/Brett Boardman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Happy endings</h2>
<p>When all seems lost, the Big Developer (hilariously played by Rob Johnson) strikes a bargain with the townspeople: if they can perform something “true and beautiful” in their panto, he will leave the town. As may come as no surprise, all’s well that ends well.</p>
<p>The highlight of the show is the panto-within-a-panto: Aladdin with a twist. Like the play’s treatment of gender, Gay and Carroll take this most problematic of stock pantomimes and make it ironic, simultaneously showing their love for the art form while refreshing it with Australian humour, sex jokes and plenty of swear words.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434037/original/file-20211125-27-xzi335.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Production image: Virgina Gay in gold" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434037/original/file-20211125-27-xzi335.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434037/original/file-20211125-27-xzi335.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434037/original/file-20211125-27-xzi335.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434037/original/file-20211125-27-xzi335.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434037/original/file-20211125-27-xzi335.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434037/original/file-20211125-27-xzi335.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434037/original/file-20211125-27-xzi335.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">All’s well that ends well.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Belvoir/Brett Boardman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The panto in this play is meant to bring the community together and, for us, The Boomkak Panto does exactly that: the audience was overjoyed to be back in the theatres after lockdown, cheering and booing along with the play’s rollicking plot.</p>
<p>But pantomime is also based on fairy tales. The idealised Boomkak doesn’t exist, and theatre cannot save the day from the developments that are destroying small towns and big cities alike. While The Boomkak Panto may indulge a little too much in a happy ending that does not offer the same satirical bite as the rest of the play, the production shows there is still much to love about pantomime. </p>
<p><em>The Boomkak Panto plays at Belvoir, Sydney, until December 23.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171728/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gabriella Edelstein does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Belvoir’s outrageously fun new pantomime is a celebration of modern Australia.
Gabriella Edelstein, Lecturer in English, University of Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/69683
2016-12-16T15:11:08Z
2016-12-16T15:11:08Z
A brief history of the pantomime – and why it’s about so much more than ‘blokes in dresses’
<p>It’s the time of year when drag collides with family entertainment. Yes, the British pantomime season is upon us, complete with all its bizarre conventions and creative casting. Among the ex-soap stars, reality TV veterans and retired sporting heroes will be a small band of middle-aged men who have cornered the market in that pantomime staple, the Dame. They will portray grotesque caricatures of women and deliver lines filled with sexual innuendo – all for the amusement of children (and, sometimes, their parents).</p>
<p>In her <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3925808/Having-male-panto-dame-sexist-claims-Caroline-Quentin-Christopher-Biggins-says-Oh-no-isn-t.html">latest Prima magazine column</a>, actress Caroline Quentin has questioned this practice. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I wonder why, in progressive 2016, we still like to see men dress in drag for entertainment… Is it appropriate, in this age of inclusion, for middle-age women to be ridiculed by blokes in skirts and too much make-up? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A reasonable question to ask, though one whose implications might not be welcomed on the drag circuit – where blokes putting on skirts is rather the point. And besides, the “tradition” of the pantomime dame is about much more than just cross-dressing. </p>
<h2>‘Oh no he didn’t’</h2>
<p>The role came about in the early 19th century, developing from the “travesti” tradition of theatrical cross-dressing. Early masters (mistresses) of the role, included <a href="http://www.its-behind-you.com/danlenonotes.html">Dan Leno</a> who, like many of his successors, came more from a music-hall tradition, rather than a dramatic one.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149096/original/image-20161207-18046-54l6rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149096/original/image-20161207-18046-54l6rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149096/original/image-20161207-18046-54l6rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149096/original/image-20161207-18046-54l6rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149096/original/image-20161207-18046-54l6rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149096/original/image-20161207-18046-54l6rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149096/original/image-20161207-18046-54l6rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dan Leno and Herbert Campbell in Babes in the Wood, 1897, at the Drury Lane Theatre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24589369">Photographer unknown</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By Leno’s time, pantomime –in one form or another – had already been established for at least a century – first as a performance known as a “harlequinade” using stock characters drawn from the Italian “commedia dell’arte” <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/comm/hd_comm.htm">a tradition of masked, slapstick comedy</a>. These performances were wordless, as the theatres where they were played were unlicensed to stage spoken drama. And it is this silence that put the “mime” into “pantomime”. </p>
<p>Of course, over the years some conventions of the traditional pantomime have faded – such as the casting of the “principal boy as a girl” – having proved about as useful as a pantomime horse.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149095/original/image-20161207-18063-1xtz0pp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149095/original/image-20161207-18063-1xtz0pp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149095/original/image-20161207-18063-1xtz0pp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149095/original/image-20161207-18063-1xtz0pp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149095/original/image-20161207-18063-1xtz0pp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149095/original/image-20161207-18063-1xtz0pp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149095/original/image-20161207-18063-1xtz0pp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Christmas Pantomime colour lithograph bookcover, 1890, showing the harlequinade characters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1244537">Wetman on en.wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This faded tradition came about in part because of the novelty that came from <a href="https://restorationtheater.wordpress.com/category/articles/">seeing the legs of a girl in tights</a> – a “breeches” role – rather than in the modest skirts that women were normally restricted to at the time. And as times have changed – with people more used to the sight of legs – the principal boy became less relevant to a world of panto. Modern conventions of pantomime, such as the inclusion of fairy tales, audience participation and comic use of cross-gender casting have all become staple parts of what many see as the traditional family panto. </p>
<h2>‘Oh yes he did’</h2>
<p>But while Quentin may well be right when she says the casting of a cross-dressing pantomime dame is less relevant in a world that has begun to accept that women can be funny in their own right, the idea of cross-dressing and transgressive gender portrayals on stage are much longer traditions – as old as theatre itself.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149097/original/image-20161207-18042-1m0a9ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149097/original/image-20161207-18042-1m0a9ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149097/original/image-20161207-18042-1m0a9ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1328&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149097/original/image-20161207-18042-1m0a9ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1328&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149097/original/image-20161207-18042-1m0a9ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1328&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149097/original/image-20161207-18042-1m0a9ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1668&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149097/original/image-20161207-18042-1m0a9ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1668&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149097/original/image-20161207-18042-1m0a9ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1668&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Playbill of an English circus and pantomime performance, 1803.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4266730">Public Domain</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From the ancient Greeks, through to Shakespeare and into the 17th century, <a href="http://www.stagebeauty.net/th-women.html">men or boys played all the female roles</a>. And until today, drag has remained a staple of comedy – from burlesque to mainstream entertainment. </p>
<p>While most of that has seen men dressing as women, the tradition of the drag king – <a href="http://www.glbtqarchive.com/arts/drag_kings_A.pdf">women dressed as men</a> – also dates back to the 18th century and was commonplace at the time in music halls. This has been a key component of the contemporary burlesque revival, which has seen drag king groups formed and performing across the UK.</p>
<p>Ultimately, theatre has always been a space where gender roles and sexual identity are questioned, mocked or unsettled –the stage offers a safe space to view fluid gender identities. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149098/original/image-20161207-18063-f7rac9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149098/original/image-20161207-18063-f7rac9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149098/original/image-20161207-18063-f7rac9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149098/original/image-20161207-18063-f7rac9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149098/original/image-20161207-18063-f7rac9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149098/original/image-20161207-18063-f7rac9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149098/original/image-20161207-18063-f7rac9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149098/original/image-20161207-18063-f7rac9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Publicity photograph of Vesta Tilley as a man, late 19th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Victoria and Albert Museum, London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In contemporary theatre, important progress is being made in casting for women. That most traditional of Christmas shows, <a href="https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/peter-pan">Peter Pan</a> has transferred from Bristol Old Vic to the National Theatre in London. Director Sally Cookson presides over a cast with a male Peter Pan (no breeches casting here), a male Tinkerbell and a female Hook. And, just down the road at The Old Vic theatre, Glenda Jackson has achieved a triumphant return to the stage as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37876137">King Lear</a>. </p>
<p>So perhaps the future casting possibilities for women are not quite as bleak as they once were. And with an increase in “gender-blind” casting, it might well mean that when it comes to sexism on stage: “It’s behind you!”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69683/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nigel Ward does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Claims have been made that having a male panto dame in this day and age is sexist (Oh no it isn’t!)
Nigel Ward, Deputy Head of Department and Course Leader for Perfoming Arts, Anglia Ruskin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/35408
2014-12-17T11:30:41Z
2014-12-17T11:30:41Z
Is panto what it was when you were a child? Oh, no it isn’t!
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67469/original/image-20141217-31043-3i1x1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The ugly sisters have long been a staple.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">mangakamaidenphotography</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Now the pantomime season is well and truly underway, many will have heard a familiar complaint. It’s newfangled, it’s not what it was. What happened to the good old days, when panto didn’t involve <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/dec/09/cinderella-wimbledon-panto-dallas-linda-gray-review">3D glasses</a> and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/dec/01/mother-goose-review-panto">reference Ukip</a>?</p>
<p>But this cry is far more tired than panto is. It’s been said time and time again, and has always been true. Leigh Hunt said it in 1831, Andrew Halliday in 1863, W Davenport Adams in 1882 and Max Beerbohm in 1898. Sure, pantomime isn’t what it was in 1800 – but its 1900 counterpart is a recognisable grandparent. This continual evolution is the secret of its survival. </p>
<p>The critics almost all want to turn the clock back to the fondly remembered days of their childhood when a trip to the pantomime was usually their first theatrical experience – as it is today for many children. But don’t kid yourself that the pantomime of your childhood was its “golden age”.</p>
<p>I have recently published a book, <a href="http://www.ibtauris.com/Books/The%20arts/Dance%20%20other%20performing%20arts/Other%20performing%20arts/The%20Golden%20Age%20of%20Pantomime%20Slapstick%20Spectacle%20and%20Subversion%20in%20Victorian%20England.aspx?menuitem=%7B17B4B2FB-4BE9-4860-8B17-73C2D7F6AC68%7D">The Golden Age of Pantomime</a>, which traces the changing nature and enduring appeal of panto. Through its mutations, three things always remain constant: slapstick, spectacle and subversion, the key elements of the panto’s appeal.</p>
<h2>Slapstick</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67466/original/image-20141217-31021-kujt2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67466/original/image-20141217-31021-kujt2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67466/original/image-20141217-31021-kujt2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67466/original/image-20141217-31021-kujt2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67466/original/image-20141217-31021-kujt2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67466/original/image-20141217-31021-kujt2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67466/original/image-20141217-31021-kujt2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67466/original/image-20141217-31021-kujt2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joseph Grimaldi, c.1820.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pantomime all begins with the harlequinade in the 18th century. An Anglicised version of the Italian <em>commedia del’arte</em>, it centred on physical action, knockabout and comic songs. This lack of speech was dictated by the <a href="http://www.theatrestrust.org.uk/resources/exploring-theatres/history-of-theatres/eighteenth-century-theatre">Theatre Licensing Act of 1737</a> which confined the use of dialogue in drama to just two theatres, Covent Garden and Drury Lane.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.theatrestrust.org.uk/resources/exploring-theatres/history-of-theatres/nineteenth-century-theatre">1843 Theatre Regulation Act</a> abolished the patent theatres’ monopoly of dialogue and allowed pantomime to revel in linguistic freedom which allowed it to deploy rhyming couplets, puns, slang and topical allusions. Enterprising producers now grafted onto the harlequinade another dramatic genre, an extravaganza which its creator, JR Planché described as the “whimsical treatment of a poetic subject”. This tended to be an elegant and witty satire on modern life conducted through comedic versions of classical myths and fairy stories. </p>
<p>The original harlequinade soon became just the second half of the classic Victorian pantomime. As the century progressed, it shrank to a couple of token scenes before vanishing altogether. Its original function was usurped by the so-called “music-hall invasion” which from the 1870s onwards saw music-hall stars cast in the pantomime with their distinctive slapstick routines, comic songs and catchphrases. </p>
<h2>Spectacle</h2>
<p>Spectacle in the mid-Victorian pantomime took the form of lengthy ballet sequences and dance routines often involving children. Some 10,000 children were employed annually in pantomime over the UK. The audiences loved them and frequently called for their dances to be encored. Their participation only diminished in the 1890s when health and safety regulations restricted their appearances. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67467/original/image-20141217-31034-1gk42is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67467/original/image-20141217-31034-1gk42is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67467/original/image-20141217-31034-1gk42is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67467/original/image-20141217-31034-1gk42is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67467/original/image-20141217-31034-1gk42is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67467/original/image-20141217-31034-1gk42is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67467/original/image-20141217-31034-1gk42is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67467/original/image-20141217-31034-1gk42is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Getting ready for Christmas in 1890.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There was also spectacle in the scene painting and the special effects. The leading pantomime scene painter of the 19th century, W R Beverley, was seriously compared to Turner, Poussin and Watteau and the century’s greatest art critic, John Ruskin, was a devotee of the pantomime. He visited half a dozen every Christmas and praised them for teaching art appreciation to the mass audience. </p>
<p>The sets and paintings of contemporary pantomime may not be the object of regular commentary by the art critics of today, but spectacle is present in other areas, more in tune with modern artistic technology – digital special effects. This isn’t pantomime changing, rather upgrading.</p>
<h2>Subversion</h2>
<p>Pantomime has also always been subversive. Some pantomime historians have claimed that the roles of the dame and the principal boy, a man dressed as a woman and a woman dressed as a man, were grand gestures of gender subversion. But they are in fact the sexist products of a patriarchal society reinforcing existing stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. </p>
<p>The dame is a parodied harridan, a grotesque send-up of womankind, while at the same time as impersonating a dashing male adventurer, the principal boy was every inch a woman, curvaceous, big-bosomed and encased in tights, the better to allow the male audience to gawp at her legs. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67486/original/image-20141217-31037-16ls61l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67486/original/image-20141217-31037-16ls61l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67486/original/image-20141217-31037-16ls61l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67486/original/image-20141217-31037-16ls61l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67486/original/image-20141217-31037-16ls61l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67486/original/image-20141217-31037-16ls61l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67486/original/image-20141217-31037-16ls61l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67486/original/image-20141217-31037-16ls61l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A transformation scene in a 19th century pantomime.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© University of Exeter</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Significantly the principal girl, the heroine, was always played by a young woman as the epitome of demure and dainty femininity. So Victorian panto was in no way ahead of its time in terms of gender. The subversion lay in the temporary seasonal role reversal and with the arrival of music-hall stars, which purists saw as the vulgarisation of dialogue and genre. </p>
<p>By the time of World War II, many of the characteristic features of the Victorian pantomime had disappeared: the harlequinade, the rhyming couplets, the transformation scene. And now even the principal boy seems to be on the way out with the role now taken by male pop stars or soap stars, introducing a new kind of subversion. This is necessary, because in a world where sexting is commonplace, the sight of a woman’s legs encased in tights isn’t such a big deal. </p>
<p>But there is still spectacle (in the form of digital special effects) and time-honoured and much-loved comedy and the stories – Cinderella, Dick Whittington, Aladdin and Jack and the Beanstalk – are as popular now as they were 200 years ago. Pantomime is certainly not what it was – it never has been.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35408/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>In 2012 Professor Richards and Professor Kate Newey, of the University of Exeter, conducted a major research project on the history and practice of pantomime, entitled ‘A Cultural History of English Pantomime, 1837-1901’. The project was funded by the AHRC.</span></em></p>
Now the pantomime season is well and truly underway, many will have heard a familiar complaint. It’s newfangled, it’s not what it was. What happened to the good old days, when panto didn’t involve 3D glasses…
Jeffrey Richards, Emeritus Professor of Cultural History, Lancaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/34523
2014-12-01T20:03:15Z
2014-12-01T20:03:15Z
This panto season: The Tale of Tony Rabbit or The Bad Bunny
<p>There aren’t many things I miss about London. </p>
<p>Waiting for the 22 bus on evenings of interplanetary cold: no. Inching down Oxford Street through crowds like rows of rugby prop forwards: not really. </p>
<p>The endless zoom of cars, planes, bicycle messengers, greedy pigeons, nosy policeman, Rastafarians, Orange people, pedestrians, equestrians, celebrities, non-entities, the odd passing Royal. Just thinking about it makes me want to lie down. </p>
<p>But there is one time of year when the city shakes itself out of Bombay madness and adopts a beguiling air of seasonal mystery. Cross-dressing that is latent becomes manifest. Ageing TV personalities whose names are fading memories become star-turns once more. </p>
<p>Theatres with seasons so dull <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/constantin-stanislavski-9492018">Stanislavski</a> himself would rise from the grave to tear down their posters, aspire to fun and wit. And if not fun and wit, then weirdness and smut. And for sure, in theatre doesn’t everything have its place? </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65158/original/image-20141121-4461-39u0tx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65158/original/image-20141121-4461-39u0tx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65158/original/image-20141121-4461-39u0tx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65158/original/image-20141121-4461-39u0tx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65158/original/image-20141121-4461-39u0tx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65158/original/image-20141121-4461-39u0tx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65158/original/image-20141121-4461-39u0tx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65158/original/image-20141121-4461-39u0tx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yes, its panto season, where no joke is too lame, no costume too garish, no story too hack, for self-indulgent re-use. Theatre is an art form containing the highest expressions of the human imagination. It also lays claim to the silliest. And thank God, because sometimes that’s exactly what we need. </p>
<p>Growing up in the 1970s I was part of a duffle-coated throng of children drifting from theatre to theatre like a shoal of mackerel, squeezing into family-priced seats for afternoons of malarkey and 30p ice-creams. </p>
<p>I saw them all: Wind in the Willows, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty, something called The Creatures of Cabbage Patch Corner, whose indestructible musical refrain persists in my memory 40 years after performance. </p>
<p>It happened like this. When I was four years old my English grandmother – iron-willed progeny of a Napoleonic Wars General – took me to Peter Pan. </p>
<p>It was at the Mermaid Theatre, then un-renovated. After a few scenes, a fearsome Captain Hook was propelled on stage sitting on a castored throne-like contraption. Because Granny Meyrick was also in a wheelchair at the time (for reasons unrelated to criminal piracy) I became convinced she had nipped to the wings and herself taken the villainous lead.</p>
<p>After that, I was hooked. Theatre had become, in the plasticity of my youthful consciousness, an art-form of consummate surprise. </p>
<p>In Currency’s <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/11562818?selectedversion=NBD10756889">Companion to Theatre in Australia</a>, Veronica Kelly calls pantomime “a dream of joy” and notes its early take-up in the colonies, its use of spectacle, topical allusion and “children as animals and fairies”. </p>
<p>For academic scholars, there is complicated evolution from Italian <a href="http://shane-arts.com/commedia-history.htm">commedia dell’arte</a>, through the Regency <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/255438/harlequinade">harlequinade</a> to contemporary burlesque and extravaganza. </p>
<p>But dissecting a pantomime is like dissecting a soap bubble. </p>
<p>Take Australia Felix (1873) <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/walch-garnet-1095">by Garnett Walch</a>, master of 19th-century theatrical cheese. Kelly writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Walch devised a plot which involved rivalry between Mirth and Mischief to rule Australia, which was supervised by the Demon King Kantankeros, who wished to import English gloom. Young Australia Felix was given a magic cricket bat to play for Victoria against W G Grace’s touring All-England XI. </p>
<p>A real match between these sides, in progress when the show opened, was integrated into the pantomime as off-stage action. Felix gambled away the bat, but finally recovered it with the help of a kookaburra and Kantankeros was defeated. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A meeting of art and sport we can all learn from, I think.</p>
<p>After the Imperial era panto lost popularity, displaced by its near-cousin, vaudeville. But it never disappeared. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65923/original/image-20141201-20585-169hjga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65923/original/image-20141201-20585-169hjga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65923/original/image-20141201-20585-169hjga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65923/original/image-20141201-20585-169hjga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65923/original/image-20141201-20585-169hjga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65923/original/image-20141201-20585-169hjga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65923/original/image-20141201-20585-169hjga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65923/original/image-20141201-20585-169hjga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alex drennan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jim Sharman’s memoir <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4497742-blood-tinsel">Blood and Tinsel</a> (2009) opens with a wonderful description of a fantale-throwing matinee at Sorlie’s (“I guess that is where it started. I was five years old”). </p>
<p>And in the 1970s New Wave artists fell on pantomime like a cannibal on a thigh bone. <a href="http://cs.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=169487">Hamlet on Ice</a> (1971) was one of the kookiest yet most exemplary productions coming out of Sydney’s Nimrod Theatre. </p>
<p>I have a clipping somewhere of Kate Fitzpatrick in tights (oozing sex), Bob Hornery in tent-like drag, (“Elsinore’s answer to Myra Breckenridge”), and Grahame Bond with electric guitar and an afro the size of a prize-winning pumpkin. </p>
<p>It was researching this show, years ago, that I finally “got” the Australian theatrical sensibility. Hamlet on Ice is panto on crack. It doesn’t merely dispense with narrative coherence, it destroys it in whacky, tacky, lurid low-mindedness, a cultural suttee in which the Value of Art feeds the flame of Total Fun. </p>
<p>“The deformities of the town, its vices, follies and absurdities are paraded for mockery,” remarked critic Brian Hoad in the Bulletin, dead impressed. </p>
<p>He continued:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the age of the international it indulges in the homespun; in the age of the sophisticate, it wallows in an orgy of gross vulgarity; in the age of precise planning it opens wide the doors to the ad-lib; in the age of bitter cerebral humour it can throw you back onto the street with a belly aching from laughter, wondering why that sort of feeling should be so rare.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Perhaps panto’s topsy-turvyness appeals to a nation unsure whether it is at the top of the world or the bottom. </p>
<p>One of the best things about pantomime is that it is highly receptive to insane ideas provided they involve terrible jokes and loud clothing. I’m sort of a specialist in both those areas, so let me outline a vehicle that, without prejudice, I can say is bound to be a sure-fire hit. </p>
<p>It involves two things we love to hate: politicians and rabbits. I call it The Tale of Tony Rabbit or The Bad Bunny. </p>
<p>Here’s the plot. </p>
<p>Tony Rabbit is elected “Big Bunny” in a warren with issues in respect of population growth, climate degradation, vegetable hoarding etc. There are some other bunnies he hangs out with, including one called “the Pyne”, who is skinny and always pooing in other bunny’s burrows, and “the Bishop”, who is softer and knows how to handle visitors from other fields. </p>
<p>Pretty soon it becomes clear the group wants to hog all the carrots for itself and its over-fed hangers-on. Also, Tony likes to push so-called “refugee” bunnies into a nearby stream whenever he can. </p>
<p>He gets into some scrapes but is eventually caught by the local farmer, Palmer, and eaten. The Pyne ends up on a Lucky Foot key-ring. The Bishop is turned into a pair of slippers. </p>
<p>In theatre, casting is all. I’m thinking of asking Our Russ to take the lead and Our Nicole to consider the Bishop. Certainly, Our Hugh would make a great farmer but it would be a move against gender stereotyping to offer it to Our Cate. </p>
<p>Who will play the Pyne? This is a key role. It requires serious consideration and possibly public consultation. I’ll also need a walk-on for the Spirit of Deregulation and a musical chorus for the big Marseilles-like number at the end: Dr-udgery, In-equality, Dis-unity. </p>
<p>It’s traditional to use non-professional celebs on these occasions, so I’ll invite Jacqui Lambie to play a giant turnip.</p>
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<p><em>This article is the first in The Conversation’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/end-of-year-series">End of Year series</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34523/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Meyrick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
There aren’t many things I miss about London. Waiting for the 22 bus on evenings of interplanetary cold: no. Inching down Oxford Street through crowds like rows of rugby prop forwards: not really. The…
Julian Meyrick, Professor of Creative Arts, Flinders University
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