Ahhh, if only all Jacks looked as good as this one - then they would have larger audiences at the panto's.The performance of pantomime originates at its earliest in ancient Greece, but exploded in popularity during the reign of Augustus in ancient Rome. The style and content of modern pantomime has very clear and strong links with the Commedia dell'arte, a form of popular theatre that arose in Italy, in the early middle ages, and which reached England by the 16th century. The gender role reversal resembles the old festival of Twelfth Night, a combination of Epiphany and midwinter feast, when it was customary for the natural order of things to be reversed. This tradition can be traced back to pre-Christian European festivals such as Samhain and Saturnalia.
In Restoration England, a pantomime was considered a low form of opera, rather like the Commedia dell'arte but without Harlequin (rather like the French Vaudeville). In 1717, John Rich introduced Harlequin to the British stage under the name of "Lun" (for "lunatic") and began performing wildly popular pantomimes. These pantomimes gradually became more topical and comic, often involving as many special theatrical effects as possible. Colley Cibber and his colleagues competed with Rich and produced their own pantomimes, and pantomime was a substantial (if decried) subgenre in Augustan drama. This form had virtually died out by the end of the 19th century.
