Pantomime: a Very British Feast (Zoom only)

Wednesday 1 December 2021 at 2.00 pm

Giles Ramsay

The lecture notes leaflet can be downloaded/printed here.

 

This is Giles Ramsay’s’ second lecture to The Arts Society Fylde. He first visited us in February 2018 to talk on Osborne, Pinter & Co: Post-War British Theatre.

Giles is an independent theatre director and producer who specializes in creating new work with artists in developing countries. He is the Founding Director of the charity Developing Artists,  a Fellow of St. Chad’s College, Durham University and Course Leader in Theatre at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Giles has run theatre projects in Botswana, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Kosovo, Palestine, Mexico, Thailand and Zimbabwe and given numerous talks for institutions ranging from The Foundation for Mexican Literature in Mexico City to The Royal College of Physicians in London. He regularly lectures on the history and practice of theatre on the Queen Mary 2 as it sails from New York to the UK. Giles combines academic analysis with hands on experience to bring a unique insight to the world of the theatre.

 

 

Over 2500 years in the making the great British pantomime is a very potent brew indeed. Mix the earliest Greek and Roman drama with commedia dell’arte and medieval morality plays, then stir in a sprig of 17th century masque, a dash of 18th century harlequinade and a hefty shot of Victorian music hall and, hey presto, you have the modern Christmas pantomime. (Oh no you don’t!).

 

Caption: The Christmas Pantomime colour lithograph book cover, 1890, showing harlequinade characters (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license)