Loud, brash, joyfully strewn with terrible puns - what Christmas tradition can Griselda Heppel be talking about?
Traditional pantomime: Joyfully strewn with terrible puns The first day of December dawns and, abracadabra , we’re in pantomime season. For those who’ve never had to sit in a British theatre among a deafening audience of 6 year-olds, dodging penny sweets being hurled from the stage, while gamely shouting ‘He’s behind you!’ to Snow-White, or Aladdin, or Little Red Riding Hood, some explanation is needed. And my goodness, have I tried to explain this particular loud, brash, clunkily scripted, outrageously overacted, joyfully strewn with terrible puns and altogether much-loved piece of our Christmas tradition to bemused visitors from other countries down the years… never with the slightest success, unfortunately. You just have to be there, really. And none more surprising than his appearance in a pantomime Or not. But it only struck me a couple of weeks ago (slow, that’s me) what an odd collection of stories makes up the pantomime r...