Simply mad about pantomime

Onstage, a revered classical actor with a knighthood and two Oscar nominations to his name is strutting his stuff in a multicolored mini-dress, tossing out double entendres with a wink to the crowd.

In the audience of the Old Vic Theatre, adults and children are alternately cheering, hissing and shouting at the stage.

It must be panto season.

For millions of Britons, the holidays are incomplete without a trip to see a pantomime -- a raucous entertainment that combines fairy tale, vaudeville, stand-up and drag revue in an exuberant, eccentric mix.

“Brits have a reputation for being unemotional and stiff-upper-lip, but when you see them at a panto, it’s unbelievable,” said Peter Lathan, author of “It’s Behind You! The Story of Panto.”

“Everybody lets themselves go. It’s the freedom to go mad and be a kid again,” he said.

Each December, hundreds of pantomimes open around the country, in humble community halls to regional and West End theaters. Their casts can include actors, pop singers, faded TV stars and even -- in the case of the Old Vic’s “Aladdin” -- Ian McKellen, in a campy comic turn.

It’s estimated that more than 10 million people in Britain attend a pantomime each year, and they’re a lifeline for many theater companies. While most commercial stage shows lose money, pantos usually make a profit.

Pantomime has its roots in the stock characters and bawdy humor of the Italian commedia dell’arte and the French harlequinade as well as the English music hall.

The ingredients gelled in the 19th century, when pantomime also gained its association with Christmas. The plots are drawn from well-known fairy tales and children’s stories. Characters include a plucky hero, or “principal boy” (often played by a woman), a broadly comic Dame (always played by a man) and an outrageous villain (sometimes played by a minor celebrity).

There are old jokes leavened with topical jibes, wince-inducing innuendo, slapstick, song and dance. Audiences delight in taking part -- hissing the villain, shouting “He’s behind you!” to warn the hero. Audience members are frequently hauled onstage to join in, and someone always gets covered in foamy goop.

Lathan said pantomime’s mix of chaos and familiarity was key to its appeal. At the same time, “it’s very anarchic,” he said. “It pulls together so many different kinds of performance.”

Then there’s the cross-dressing. The Dame -- bold, blowzy, a little bit rude -- is every panto’s star turn. McKellen has said he leaped at the chance to play Widow Twankey, Aladdin’s tart-tongued mother.

McKellen revels in the role, modeling a series of eye-popping outfits and savoring the songs, the smut, even the inevitable “Lord of the Rings” jokes. The audience eats it up.

“This is dangerous, dangerous stuff, isn’t it?” he mused to the Daily Telegraph recently. “Just when the children in the audience are at an age when they are trying to sort out the notion of gender, along comes a man in a frock to kick it all sideways and say, ‘Anything goes!’ That’s what is so wonderful about pantomime: Anything goes.”