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 of the music and shout out phrases to the performers. Pantomime has a long theatrical history in Western culture dating back to classical theatre. It developed partly from the 16th century commedia dell'arte tradition of Italy and other European and British stage traditions, such as 17th-century masques and music hall. An important part of the pantomime, until the late 19th century, was the harlequinade. Outside Britain, the word "pantomime" is often understood to mean miming, rather than the theatrical form discussed here. The word pantomime was adopted from the Latin word "pantomimus", which in turn derives from the Greek word