I noticed in Australia when they do “pantos” on their TV series it involves interaction with the audience. Of course on Prisoner(Prisoner: Cell Block H) the panto usually involved a coverup for an escape including the “Great Tunnel Escape.”
I’ve never heard of Dick Wittington.
That’s all right, he’s never heard of you either.
Dick Whittington And His Wonderful Cat is a rags-to-riches story of the traditional kind, purporting to show that application and persistence can lead to fortune and happiness. It might be dismissed as just a fairy tale but research shows that Sir Richard Whittington was a boy from Gloucestershire who was apprenticed to a mercer in the City of London and became a wealthy and prosperous mercer who supplied the court with cloth and later wool, did an export and import trade, was elected Lord Mayor three times, and also loaned money to the King. He appears to have been a popular, respected, honest and trustworthy official and when he died in 1423 he left substantial legacies to the City to be used for the benefit of the citizens. The almshouse he established, Whittington College, is still administered by the Mercers’ Company. The legend attached to his name appears as far back as the early 17th c.
John Inman (Mr. Humphries in Are You Being Served?) became one of the more prolific pantomime Dames (appearing in more than 40 pantos) after that show ended. I can remember it being mentioned in his obituary a few years ago.
Panto actually has more of a history and a place in the English theatre culture than most people know. It’s been around since the 18th century and is a direct descendant of Commedia dell’arte which is a sixteenth century Italian form …
Boy, I’ll bet that part about selling your pussy in Morocco gets played for all it’s worth.
The daughter giving Dick her pussy is just too easy.
As well as talking to the audience, there is often (always?) a part where they look for a child ‘volunteer’ (or several) to go up on stage. Or some of the cast have a chase through the audience.
At least those are the bits seared into my mind through pure fear, 25 years later.
These two quotes don’t make sense together to me as an American. How can something be both vulgar and aimed at children?
Vulgar-common, coarse, crude-sounds about right for the kids I know. My nephews would love it.
Not vulgar as in sex and dirty words. Vulgar as in “not high culture”. Ballet is high culture…you don’t find a lot of working-class people going to see the Ballet Russe. Panto is low-culture, like clowns and slapstick and getting hit in the face with a bladder.
As others have said, vulgar in the sense of not high culture but there will be plenty of inuendo, double entendres, etc that hopefully the children won’t catch. 
In Cinderella the carriage to take her to the Ball is sometimes pulled by real shetland ponies all done up with ribbons in ther manes, etc. The show about comes to a stop as everybody admires teh cuteness as they’re led around the stage!