Pantomime at the Lyceum Theatre in 1939. Traditionally performed at Christmas and afterwards, with family audiences, British pantomime continues as a popular form of theatre, incorporating song, dance, buffoonery, slapstick, cross-dressing, in-jokes, topical references, audience participation, and mild sexual innuendo. Pantomime story lines and scripts usually make no direct reference to Christmas, and are almost always based on traditional children's stories, particularly the fairy tales of Charles Perrault, Joseph Jacobs, Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm Brothers. Some of the most popular pantomime stories include "Cinderella", "Aladdin", "Dick Whittington and His Cat" and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", as well
Pantomime horse feature in Christmas pantomimes, mainly in the United Kingdom. A skilled pair of performers can dance as a pantomime horse. Pantomime horses feature prominently in an episode of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" titled "Blood, Devastation, Death, War and Horror". In the "Merchant Banker" sketch, two pantomime horses are forced to fight to the death for their job. Another sketch features a pantomime horse as a James Bond-esque secret agent, chasing its enemy around the world in cars, rickshaws, and even riding actual horses. The episode also features a pantomime goose and a pantomime dame Princess Margaret, which later appeared in