London at the End of the Century:A Book of Gossip
a Beckett, Arthur William
1900
PANTOMIMES OF THE PAST.
I must frankly confess I had no knowledge of how many things had to be done to produce a pantomime until I had made the inspection to which I have just referred. I rather pride myself upon an intimate acquaintance with things theatrical, and from a very early age have been accustomed to visit that place of disillusions, In years gone by I have been present when was being performed at the Princess's Theatre. The father of Sir Augustus Harris was the lessee of the theatre, and M. Zola might point to the fact in support of his theory of heredity. was one of the most successful of pantomimes ever produced outside the walls of Drury Lane, but it was not to be compared with the modern annual. As the ironclad of the present is to the wooden three-decker of the past, so is the Panto of to-day to the Panto of five-and-twenty years ago. Everything nowadays is on an infinitely grander scale. Where | |
103 | there was but one ballet scene, there are now three or four; where there was a solitary procession, there are now half-a-dozen; where there was a company of fifty or sixty, there is now an army numbering the greater part of a thousand. Those who were sufficiently fortunate to be present in Drury Lane during the run of the pantomime watched the evolutions of no less than seven hundred persons. Fancy, seven hundred persons dressed and drilled and taught to dance and sing to amuse the children! That those children are of all ages is true enough, for grandfather and grandson are equally delighted. It is a sign of the times that nowadays no one thinks of apologising for visiting the pantomime. In the pretty-long-ago now we go to please ourselves. It may be justly said that no Christmas holidays are complete without a visit to the pantomime. And I write advisedly. In the case of Yule-Tide entertainments there has been a distinct survival of the fittest. |
