Alongside this, on the lines “mr blue, you did it right” till “i’ll remember you this, i’ll remember you this way” the baddy’s would walk into the audience and scear/cast spells on them, helping to make them feel less like an audience and more like a character within panto land itself. 

For example, the opening number was used to relieve the seriousness of scene 2, where the baddy’s were introduced and started to plan about stealing the fairy wands.

However, at the start of act 2 we used the song 'ghostbusters’ to help create a creepy atmosphere to help show that we had now entered so far into the woods, monsters were discovered from there hiding. This changed the mood of the panto from an upbeat happy performance full of hope, Into a scary, suspense filled show. 

Another recognisable example of slapstick is when queenie punched one of the monsters. Whenever this scene happened the person playing her would swing their arm turning their body so the audience couldn't see the space between the 2 characters whilst he punched his other hand causeing the hit sound. This worked extremely well cause it always made an extremely believable punch helping to convince the audience that they did actually hit eachother.

However after sorting out costumes we decided that slapstick would also work in the mum and dad scenes where Agather would cut alburt off she would now hit alburt with her bag to help make a more sudden cut off.

In most stage performances audience interaction is discouraged and can cause the performers to get distracted. However, pantomimes encourage this interaction, typically going out of their way to address the audience and involve them in what's going on within the performance.

The audience is encouraged to boo at the villains, to cheer for the hero's and help inform the characters about stuff happening, like a bear appearing behind them.

This is also where the titular lines "its behind you" and "oh no its not"/"oh yes it is" comes from.

This technique is one of the core parts of a pantomime and is expected to be a part of the show no matter what panto is being performed.

Originally, it would be characters like the dame or principal boy who would be played by the opposite gender but now days we only really see the dame as a character that has to be played by the opposite gender and all the other characters just depend on who auditioned better for it.

Traditionally the panto dame is a character that is played by a man in drag. Usually he would be in big elaborate outfits/dresses with extremely exaggerated makeup. Alongside this, they are known to have large fake breasts and towering wigs to help them look more feminine.

This is because women started taking roles on stage around the late 17th century so before that men would have to play any and every role regardless of gender. However, a panto dame started to become essential to the performance and a man playing the role added to the comedic effect so much that it became traditional for men to play this role.

On the other hand, despite its name, the principle boy was traditionally played by a female. Now this role can be played by anyone and it wont affect the piece but women have been known to play this role since they were first permitted on stage. This is because back when women were first permitted on stage their attire went down to there ankles, showing very little skin and this role provided a marvellous chance to display a shapely pair of limbs which helped increase the male audience. This was extremely common in times like the Victorian era which helped to shape pantomimes as we know them now.

Alongside this, slapstick also relates to the exaggerated movements that would be performed to add a more comedic effect within a performance.

The most well known examples of slapstick in modern day is stuff like Mr Bean or Tom and Jerry.

Slapstick is still highly used now within pantomimes within ridiculous chase scenes or scenes where characters are quietly sneaking across the stage.

The first reason is for setting a specific mood or emotion. For example, most pantos have an opening number to make a happy and positive mood within the location its being performed but then later on in the panto it typically will have a sad song like a duet between the main character and their love interest.

Another reason is to either relive or create tension. by using a song to do this you can every easily shift the mood in seconds making that change of tension quick but still fluid so that its almost unnoticeable.

Furthermore, song and dance can be used to help tell the story, providing more information and help to explain what is happening within a scene. For example, you could have a song like "count on me" by Bruno mars play when two or more characters are becoming friends with one another.

Alongside this, it could also be used for audience interaction. Most pantos use small sections of well known songs between the final scene of the story and the bows so that characters have time to change into different outfits. For example, shows like snow white would have a scene like this so that the person playing her would have time to change into a wedding dress.

They are loud, interactable musical comedies usually based on classic children's tales like dick Whittington, jack and the beanstalk and snow white, filling the performance area with tons of laughter from children and also adults because of the few adult-minded jokes slipped into most panto scripts.

Most pantos include:

audience interaction

gender swapped roles

slapstick comedy

song and dance

Alongside this a lot of pantos around the UK use well known celebrities to help draw in bigger audiences however not all do and it isn't needed for a panto to be successful. The use of celebrities dates back over 100 years becoming really popular within larger cities.

Furthermore, I wrote and edited the tech script so that when we went to perform our piece we wouldn't have to worry about ques being missed or messed up and instead we would be able to focus completely on performing a perfect show in front of an audience.

Additionally, I went and dyed 2 shirts red so that they would be matching for me and daisy since we were supposed to be Louis's minions and we wanted to have us looking almost identical.