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By the 19th century, the festive season was getting much closer to our modern Christmas. Victorians had Christmas trees, Christmas cards and panto. In fact, panto dates back at least 200 years. Most of the jokes are that old too. And it comes with its own very obvious worst job.
A lot of performers love doing pantomime. To be frank I can't stand it. Eight, sometimes 12 shows a week, all that dreadful dialogue, lots of screaming kids. But if you are gonna be in a pantomime, be Buttons, be the Dame, be Cinderella. Don't be the back end of a cow.
The downside's obvious: it's hot, sticky, dark, silly, and anonymous. And for the back end, it means you spend your working life bend double with your nose pressed into a colleague's bottom. In the Victorian Age, actors like Johnny Fullers specialized in playing animals. They transformed themselves into spookily man-shaped poodles, pussycats, even monkeys.
Come on lad. Don't be shy, there's a good girl, oh hoo, I say, is she er…, isn't she beautiful? Oh ho
But at least at the back end of a cow there is no danger unlike the worst job backstage that gave us our modern panto experience.
If you wanna get all your laughs in a modern pantomime your first priority is to be seen. The stage needs to be bright and attractive and well illuminated. And that has not always been the case. Until the beginning of the 19th century this is the kind of light that you'd have been lit by on a stage. It's dull, it's flat, it’s gaslight. You can see my gut but you can‘t see my face here, can you? If I wanted to be brightly lit, I needed to be in the limelight.
Buttons(英口语.罕) 男侍者 (bellboy)在旅馆、俱乐部等中穿着金色钮扣制服
Cinderella n.灰姑娘
poodlen. 狮子狗;卷毛狗
pussycat n. 猫
Synonyms: kitty, kitty-cat, puss, pussy
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