Pushing Buttons, year after year

Pantomime writers try to bring fresh energy to the stage every Christmas, but they must still give the audience what they want: stock characters, cross-dressing and a happy ending. SARA KEATINGfinds out how they do it

LOVE IT or hate it, pantomime is one of the oldest and most popular forms of theatre to survive into the present day. Its roots are in the Italian commedia dell’arte tradition, whose blend of stock characters, exaggerated physical comedy, and song-and-dance routines became an international cultural phenomenon in the late 1500s. The physical comedy was created mostly by the central figure of Arrlechino, or Harlequin, who carried a wooden sword that he used as both a weapon and a magic wand, depending on the circumstances offered by the plot. It had a hinged flap that created a loud slapping noise when Harlequin hit one of the actors; the slapstick comedy on which pantomime is based was born.

The commedia was traditionally performed by itinerant theatre troupes; in the early 1600s they gradually wandered over to England, where the language barrier forced performers to amplify the physical elements of the plot in order to communicate with English audiences.

As the centuries wore on the tradition was diluted and bastardised. Slapstick evolved to include theatrical slip-ups with banana skins, punishments involving rotten fruit, and eventually custard pies. Stock characters were reinvented to fall in with changing social hierarchies and the topical references updated to keep pace with the times.

The gender-bending conventions of Elizabethan theatre, where pantomime made its first appearance, meant key female parts continued to be played by men, giving birth to a tradition of cross-dressing that is one of the most essential elements of the pantomime experience.

In the early 19th century the traditional fairy-tale formula we associate with pantomime became standard. The fairy tales themselves fall in and out of fashion: Robinson Crusoeand Babes in the Woodwere Victorian favourites; Cinderella, Beauty and the Beastand Jack and the Beanstalkare on permanent rotation these days. But the fairy-tale structure remains the same: a solid set of storytelling conventions that are updated yearly to remain relevant to a contemporary audience.

In Aladdin, for example, the Widow Twankey and Wishee Washee first emerged in the 1890s at Drury Lane Theatre in London; Widow Twankey (or Twankay as she was then known) was a seamstress turned laundress named after a popular brand of tea, and Wishee Washee, her helper/hindrance, emerged soon after as comic foil; both are key characters in the version of the story performed today.

The most famous pantomime character of all is Buttons, the pageboy to the prince, who first appeared in the 1870s as Buttoni and remains as popular a love rival to the prince as ever.

The challenge for the modern pantomime, then, is simultaneously to appear familiar to the audience and bring a fresh energy to the stage every year. Paul Elliot, the veteran panto writer behind this year's Aladdinfor the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin, has produced more than 450 pantomimes. Over the years he occasionally tried to scupper audience expectations, but familiarity, he says, is the vital element for the pantomime's success.

Elliot has also tried to subvert the stories: Cinderella, for example, he says, "is just morally wrong; she should marry Buttons, not the prince, and I tried that, and I also tried a Cinderellawith no Buttons at all, [but] the theatres don't like it and the punters don't either. Ultimately, you have to give the public what they want."

Within the structured format "you can create all sorts of different energies", says Elliot. "Your job is to put the icing on the top." The icing in the modern format largely revolves around topical gags and chart-topping pop songs. This year's pantos are shying away from direct political commentary. "You want the theatre to be a place where they can escape the recession," says Karl Harpur, the writer and director of Jack and the Beanstalkat the Helix in Dublin. However, the 2008 pantomime at the Gaiety, written by Gary Cooke and Malachy McKenna, recast Cinderella as an unnamed, undiscovered writer of romantic fiction and her father as Baron Bertie; the topical references need not always be oblique.

And while you might not get away with rewriting the fairy tale, there is always room for new additions and plot twists, as Karl Broderick, writer of Beauty and the Beast,found out when he created Sammy Sausages for the 2001 production of Aladdin. Sammy Sausages has become a fixture in the panto that Broderick writes every year. "The year we did Cinderella, Alan Hughes, who plays Sammy, was the natural for the Buttons part," he says, "but the audience had clicked with Sammy for some reason, so we decided to keep him in it."

Elliot says contemporary reference is vital but that you must "choose your music wisely, because it has to work within the narrative of the play". The X Factorand Cheryl Cole have provided inspiration for Elliot this year, while for Broderick the popularity of Glee offers a perfect opportunity to engage both adults and children: "They have given us a repertoire of old songs which parents and grandparents will be familiar with, but which have been made cool and relevant to teenagers and children too."

Finding the balance between child and adult appeal is crucial. “It is hugely important that the adults are involved in the production, too,” says Harpur. “They are the ones who are paying for the tickets, and they won’t come if it means spending two hours being bored or patronised. I suppose the model that I would look to would be The Simpsons or Toy Story, where the appeal is broad rather than just for children.”

But, ultimately, the pantomime is for children, says Elliot. “You shouldn’t have comedy which goes over the heads of the children. It puts parents in an invidious position with their children and the kids feel left behind and that is not fair.” It is, he says, “the greatest medium there is. For most children it is their first experience of the theatre, and if they like it and have great fun they’ll want to know what else happens in this big old building. They’ll be coming back to the theatre for life.”

Celebrity appearances

The Theatre Royal at Drury Lane in London began the tradition of including variety stars in the pantomime. Actors as various as Ian McKellen and Cilla Black have appeared in pantomimes in England over the past few years, while Christopher Biggins played the pantomime dame for 38 years in a row.

In Ireland this year, the reality-TV stars Jedward play the Ugly Sisters in Cinderella, and the Boyzone singer Mikey Graham is the star vehicle for Aladdin. In Beauty and the Beastthe Big Brother winner Brian Dowling (pictured) plays the dame, and a different Irish celebrity will make a cameo appearance every night, in aid of the children's charity Cari.