Reading & Research

We’ve compiled the following list of reading and research relating to contemporary Pantomime practice. If you have a document or book you think we could add to the list, you can get in touch here.

  • Abbott, C. 2012. Putting on Panto to Pay for the Pinter. Salisbury: Hobnob Press. 
  • Abbott, C. 2015. ‘Henry Marshall’s Gag Book: Pantomime Routines for Actors in Twentieth Century Repertory Theatre’. Theatre Notebook, 69 (1). pp. 40–61.
  • Arrighi, Gillian. 2012. ‘The D’Oyly Carte Pantomimes: Complementarity and Innovation’. Popular Entertainment Studies, 3 (2). pp. 31-44. 
  • Bezuidenhout, T L K and Coetzee, M. 2012. ‘Constructing nation and identity in post-apartheid South Africa: a reading of Janice Honeyman’s pantomime version of Peter Pan’. Popular Entertainment Studies, 3 (2). pp. 45-64.
  • Bradfield, J and Hooper, M. 2020. He’s Behind You: Eleven Gay Pantomimes. Tolworth: Grosvenor House Publishing. 
  • Branagh, J and Orton, K. 2011. Creating Pantomime. Ramsbury: The Crowood Press.
  • Brandreth, G. 1974. I Scream for Ice Cream: Pearls from the Pantomime. London: Methuen. 
  • Brandreth, G. 1973. Discovering Pantomime. London: Shire Publications. 
  • Broadbent, R J. 1901. A History of Pantomime. London: Simkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. 
  • Chang, D. 2015. Representing China on the Historical London Stage: From Orientalism to Intercultural Performance. London: Routledge. 
  • Davis, J. Ed. 2011. Victorian Pantomime: A Critical Reader. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 
  • David, J. 1996. ‘Imperial Transgressions: the ideology of Drury Lane Pantomime in the late nineteenth century’. New Theatre Quarterly. 12:46. pp. 147-155.
  • Davis, J. 2012. ‘First Bouquets, Big Heads and Obstinate Horses: Illustrating the Victorian Pantomime’. Popular Entertainment Studies, 3 (2), pp. 4-30.
  • Davis, J. 2014. ‘“Slap on! Slap ever!” Victorian Pantomime, Gender Variance and Cross Dressing’. New Theatre Quarterly, 30:3. pp. 218-230.
  • Emeljanow, V. (2015). ‘Palliative Pantomimes: Entertainments in Prisoner-of-War Camps’. In: Maunder, A. ed. British Theatre and the Great War, 1914–1919. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 269–287. 
  • Frow, G. 1985. Oh Yes it is!: History of Pantomime. London: BBC Books. 
  • Harris, P. 2008. Pantomime Book: The Only Known Collection of Pantomime Jokes and Sketches in Captivity. London: Peter Owen Publishers. 
  • Holland, P. 1997. ‘The Play of Eros: Paradoxes of Gender in English Pantomime’. New Theatre Quarterly, 13 (51). pp. 195-204. 
  • Hope, R. 2012. ‘Directing Pantomime: Steve Marmion on Dick Whittington and his Cat’. In: Hope, Russ. Getting Directions: A Fly-on-the-Wall Guide for Emerging Theatre Directors. London: Nick Hern Books. 
  • Kruger, M. ‘Pantomime in South Africa: The British tradition and the local flavour,’ South African Theatre Journal, 17:1 (2003). pp. 129-152.
  • King, S. 2018. ‘Identifying the socio-economics of pantomime through Cinderella’s footwear in 2017‐18 adaptations of the tale,’ Studies in Costume and Performance,4:1. pp. 43-64. 
  • King, S. 2020. ‘The Fairy Gokmother: Representations of gender and sexuality in the Qdos pantomime Cinderella’. Queer Studies in Media and Popular Culture, 2-3:1. pp. 171-189
  • Lipton, M. 2007. ‘Celebrity versus Tradition: “Branding” in Modern British Pantomime’. New Theatre Quarterly, 23 (2), 136–149.
  • Lipton, M. 2008. ‘Principally Boys? Gender Dynamics and Casting Practices in Modern British Pantomime’. Contemporary Theatre Review, 18 (4). pp. 470–486. 
  • Lipton, M. 2012. ‘Localism and Modern British Pantomime.’ in: Arrighi, G and Emeljanow, V. eds. A World of Popular Entertainments: An Edited Volume of Critical Essays. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 
  • Lipton, M. 2014. ‘The House that Tommy Built “somewhere in Greece”: pantomimes produced by the 85th Field Ambulance in Salonika 1915-18. Popular Entertainment Studies, Vol. 5, Issue 1, pp. 28-57.
  • Mander, R and Mitchenson, J. 1973. Pantomime: A Story in Pictures. London: Peter Davies. 
  • Marsden, R. 2020. ‘Monsters and the Pantomime.’ Palgrave Communications 6 (1): 36. 
  • Marsden, R. 2022. ‘Pantomime’ inConner, L, Johanson, K, Reason, M and Walmsley, B, eds. Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts. London; Routledge. pp. 477-483
  • Mayer, D. 1974. ‘The Sexuality of Pantomime.’ Theatre Quarterly,4 (3). pp. 55–64.
  • Mayer, D. 1969. Harlequin in his Element: The English Pantomime, 1806-1836. Cambridge MA: Harvard UP. 
  • Mitchell, G. 2017. ‘Mod movement in Quality Street clothes: British popular music and pantomime, 1955-1975’. New Theatre Quarterly, 33(3). pp. 254-276.
  • Newey, K. 2013. ‘Fairies and Sylphs: Femininity, Technology and Technique’ in Reilly, K, ed. Theatre, Performance and Analogue Technology. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 97-116.
  • Newey, K, Richard, J and Yeandle, P. 2016. Politics, Performance and Popular Culture: Theatre and Society in Nineteenth‐Century Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  • O’Brien, J. 2015. Harlequin Britain: Pantomime and Entertainment, 1690 – 1760. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. 
  • O’Quinn, D and Schacker, J, eds. (2020) The Routledge Pantomime Reader 1800 – 1900. London: Routledge. 
  • Pickering, D. 1993. Encyclopedia of Pantomime. Andover: Gale Research International. 
  • Pritchard, E. 2022. ‘”Get down on your knees”: Representing the Seven Dwarfs in the Pantomime’. Disability Studies Quarterly. 42:1. 
  • Salberg, D. 1981. Once Upon a Pantomime. Luton: Cortney Publications. 
  • Schacker, J. 2013. ‘Slaying Blunderboer: Cross-Dressed Heroes, National Identities, and Wartime Pantomime’. Marvels & Tales. 27:1. pp. 52-64.
  • Schacker, J. 2018. Staging Fairyland: Folklore, Children’s Entertainment, and Nineteenth-Century Pantomime. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
  • Sladen, S. 2012. ‘The Globality of Pantomime: A Brief Excursion.’ Popular Entertainment Studies, 3 (2), 65–71. 
  • Sladen, S. 2014. ‘The Death of the Dame? Tales from the National Database of Pantomime Performance’. Studies in Theatre and Performance, 35 (1). pp. 80–89. 
  • Sladen, S. 2017. ‘“Hiya Fans!” Celebrity Performance and Reception in Modern British Pantomime’. In: A. Ainsworth, O. Double and L. Peacock, eds. Popular Performance. London: Bloomsbury. pp. 179–202. 
  • Sladen, S. 2018. ‘Design for Pantomime’ in eds. Long, Philip and Norman, Joanna. The Story of Scottish Design. London: Thames and Hudson / V&A. pp. 144-145.
  • Sladen, S. 2020. ‘Wicked Queens of Pantoland’ in Edward, M and Farrier, S. Drag Histories, Herstories and Herstories: Drag in a Changing Scene (Vol. 2). London: Bloomsbury.
  • Sladen, S. 2020. ‘“That sort of fairy tale’s no use in the new Victorian age that’s coming”: The past as a metaphor for the present in Peter Nichols’s Poppy’. Popular Entertainment Studies, Vol. 11 (1-2). pp. 46-65. 
  • Sullivan, J.A. 2011. The Politics of Pantomime: Regional Identity in the Theatre, 1860–1900. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press.
  • Taylor, M. 2007. British Pantomime Performance. Exeter: Intellect
  • Waters, H. 2007. Racism on the Victorian Stage: Representation of Slavery and the Black Character. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
  • Wilson, A.E. 1934. Christmas Pantomime. London: G. Allen & Unwin. 
  • Wilson, A.E. 1946. Pantomime Pageant. London: Stanley Paul & Co Ltd. 
  • Wilson, A.E. 1949. The Story of Pantomime. London: Home & Van Thal. 
  • Witchard, A. 2009. Thomas Burke’s Dark Chinoiserie: Limehouse Nights and the Queer Spell of Chinatown. London: Routledge. 
  • Yeandle, P. 2015. ‘Exotic people and exotic places in Victorian pantomime’, in Morosetti, T. ed. Staging the Other in Nineteenth-Century British Drama. Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 125-51.
  • Ziter, E. 2003. The Orient on the Victorian Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Last updated 7 Oct 2022