E. L. Blanchard and ‘The Golden Age of Pantomime’

Abstract

The distinctive Victorian pantomime emerged in the middle of the nineteenth century. Its predecessor, the Regency pantomime, the clown-centred Harlequinade, reached its apogee during the pre-eminence of Joseph Grimaldi (1806–1837). The Regency pantomime had a short one or two scene ‘opening’ with a plot derived from fairy story, nursery rhyme, myth and legend and the much longer Harlequinade in which the characters of the opening were transformed into the characters of the commedia dell’arte — Harlequin, Columbine and Pantaloon — and engaged in a knockabout sequence of song, dance and acrobatics. The largely dialogue-less form of the Regency pantomime was dictated by the 1737 Licensing Act which gave a monopoly of the spoken word on stage to the patent theatres, Drury Lane and Covent Garden. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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