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 can see little, although there are normally eye holes in the bottom part of the horse's torso to enable him to see where he is putting his feet and to enable him to breathe. Pantomime horses and cows feature in Christmas pantomimes, mainly in the United Kingdom. The progenitors of the pantomime horse costume were the centaur and the ass, costumes used in ancient Greek and Roman revels, which carried on to "commedia dell'arte" shows. However, the two-person comic variant of the horse or donkey costume was introduced in the late 19th century. It remained popular throughout the mid-20th century,