Robert Gore-Langton

The art of the panto dame

Robert Gore Langton talks to Britain’s finest practitioners about bosoms, blue gags and whether the panto dame will survive the culture wars

Grande dame: Clive Rowe in Mother Goose at Hackney Empire. Credit: Manuel Harlan 
issue 17 December 2022

There is nothing more panto than a dame. The grandmother of today’s dames is Dan Leno (1860–1904), a champion clog dancer and music-hall performer, not much taller than Ronnie Corbett. He was preceded by others, notably James Rogers, who in 1861, in Aladdin,played a character called Widow Twankey, named after a cheap and revolting tea.

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