In no way opera, but see below Sherry Baines, Imogen Claire, Angela Clerkin, Jonathan Coyne, Martin Freenan, Richard Katz, Andy Smart Adapted and staged by Julian Crouth, Phelim McDermott, Lee Simpson and Neil Bartlett Musical director Chris Larner Consultant illusionist Paul Keive I have to explain about pantomime. In the great recombinant gene pool of music theatre, it ends up with a more-or-less skeletal boy-girl plot with a cruel or predatory villain of either sex, travesty dress in both directions (associated with crude humour when male-to-female), comic servants and other archetypes from new/Roman comedy and commedia dell'arte, animal helpers, and a transformation scene. Other vaudeville or artistic turns can be inserted ad lib -- prewar pantos often had an entr'acte ballet and opera singers, comedians who were too expensive or too drunk to hire for the comic servant role often did a cameo, or simply a bit of standup. (Frankie Howard, the original Pseudolus, did a lot of panto.) There are also required musical elements, including opening and closing choruses for each act, a love duet and a he/she-doesn't-love-me solo, all of which can be recycled from somewhere else -- every panto I saw until I was twenty began with Oh what a beautiful morning from Oklahoma, and all included at least one top 20 number. The defining characteristics of panto are that it is produced in British commercial theatre around the winter solstice and that it uses a limited set of plots. These come from various sources: Perrault (Cinderella, Puss in Boots), Grimm (Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Red Riding Hood), Arabian Nights (Aladdin), "history" (Dick Whittington, Robin Hood), broadsheets (Babes in the wood). I don't know where Jack and the Beanstalk comes from, English trad. maybe. All the stories get knocked into the pre-ordained shape, with a boy or girl added for love interest where required (Red Riding Hood gets together with the woodsman's son, the giant has a girly daughter for Jack) and a dame character, often the hero's mother, played by a well-known comedian or a specialist actor. The key difference between most genres of music theatre and traditional panto is the absence in panto of an auteur composer, or a visible authorial hand of any kind. Traditional pantomine seems to be put together formulaically according to the performers and budget available. But the stories themselves are powerful, and authorial types have also had a go at them. Rossini's Cerentola is nothing like panto. Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, with its emphasis on greed and violence, is pretty close, especially with a tenor witch. Oddly enough, the Ring -- stern father all at sea, spunky daughter on the outs with him, and boy undergoing Bildung until he and she get together, all with spectacular sets and magic fire -- also has echoes. (Richard Jones' decision to make Mime a pantomime dame showed considerable insight. Compare Jack and the beanstalk, where Jack's mother spends the first act complaining about how useless he is, so he goes off and kills a giant to annoy her.) In the past ten years or so, since Into the woods and The company of wolves, mainstream music theatre companies have been doing pantomimes that bring out the implicit political and sexual elements of the stories. Some of them think they're being radical. But provided there's a proper dame and enough rude jokes, pantomime even in its most commercial form is the most subversive thing in British theatre, as Angela Carter saw. This year's Lyric pantomime includes Angela Carter in the title, but it differs from the traditional product mainly in having original music, some breathtaking low-tech effects, few topical references (a mention of Naomi Campbell was all I noticed, probably to deal with a difficult rhyme) and no soapie stars in the cast. It also keeps the dead mother from Perrault, instead of the "fairy godmother", and gives Buttons, Cinderella's pal, the job of Dandini, the Prince's gofer. Put together by the team that produced Shockheaded Peter, and performed on a full-size Pollock's theatre set, this Cinderella is semi-improvised around the songs and effects. The cast each play one role, but also narrate, work puppets and take on other roles -- the friendly mice are hand puppets, the debs at the ball are the cast in cutout frocks, everyone plays Cinderella's absent father, hiding behind newspapers, then crumples the papers to make the dead mother's spirit. The dead mother is rather scary, something like Endorra in Bewitched. She's presumably scary because she's dead, but she conjures up everything Cinderella needs to go to the ball, in a ghostly magical scene involving sellotape flying around against a black background. The stepmother is a slinky Mrs Danvers type, the ugly sisters are classic dames (one Lily Savage-ish, but uncool, one Harry-Worth frumpy). Cinders, Buttons and the Prince are modern urban young people. The audience, which included a large proportion of very young children, clearly loved it all. I would guess that what looked to me like an imbalance between the acts was the result of the performers' and producers' experience with pacing things for the audience they got. The first act (up to Cinderella's transformation before the ball) lasted well over an hour, and included only two songs and a lot of dialogue and exposition. The second act was much shorter but had back-to-back songs, all well fitted to the plot. But both the first act songs were winners -- a rude duet by the ugly sisters, Oh what a lovely pair, and the haunting and extremely weird Cheese by moonlight, sung by the mice about their dead mother. I won't try to explain it, but it has already entered my shower repertoire (I can't remember love though I danced all night/but give me something smelly by the cool moonlight.) Highly recommended if you want a panto, and worth a look as slightly odd music theatre.