Pantomime in Scotland : Your Other National Theatre

Explores pantomime’s development in Scotland from the 1850s to the twenty-first century.

Pantomime has a distinctive and vital place in Scotland’s cultural life. This book traces its development from the nation’s rich popular theatre and music hall traditions to become Scotland’s ‘other national theatre’. The book examines the representations of Scottish identity in scripts, performing material, designs and iconography as well as the significance of pantomime in the development of a modern, popular and politically engaged Scottish theatre. It tells this story through unpublished playscripts and pantomime ‘books of words’, memoirs and related texts, as well as through archive photographs and specially recorded oral history interviews with audience members and pantomime performers. Exploring this unique, popular form, from its barnstorming heyday through its ongoing influence on modern Scottish theatre, the book shows how pantomime came to play such a special role in Scottish popular culture.