RESEARCH FINDING: These two ingredients are KEY to making better panto

It seems like forever ago that I started my PhD research exploring the question: "How does contemporary British Pantomime respond to Evolving Ideas of Identity?"  For those of you that have continued reading my blog, I'm sure it seems like even longer!

In truth, it's only been three years (nearly), and the end is very firmly in sight. In that time I have:

• interviewed dozens of panto big wigs, 
• held town hall meetings with my audiences, 
• gathered stakeholder feedback, 
• recorded dozens of hours of audio diaries, 
• innovated the form, and 
• analysed my companies data to death.  
• And read about a bajillion books about pantomime history.  
• And another bajillion about identity politics.  
• And at least two bajillion about academic methodology (don't even...) 
• Oh, and best of all - I've produced 7 pantomimes, which I used as a test bed to put my research and ideas into practice.  

I am knackered.  I look forward to publishing my research next year, telling you all what I've discovered, along with my recommendations for best practice.  BUT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO WAIT THAT LONG... Right here, on this very blog I can reveal for the first time ever  

My Top Two Innovative Contributions to the Form!!!!

* Application of the Hyperlocal Lens *

* The Repositioning of Meaning-Value with a Gifting Paradigm *

"What are you on about?"  

"Why those two things?"

"How did you get to that decision?"

So many questions! I know - it's exciting, isn't it?  Let me explain... from the very beginning. It's a very good place to start. (Apparently - Julie A.)

The Big Bang (T = -6 months)

I got the idea to start my research after a very effervescent conversation about race and Aladdin.  The conversers were a diverse bunch with loads of different opinions, and I found myself defending the "it's traditional" corner.  Before anyone gets any silly ideas: I wasn't in the "slap on some yellow face paint and pigtails" corner, just the: as long as everyone is respectful, it's surely OK to set it in China camp.  

The Emperor of China, Stockport Plaza (2012).
Yellow masking tape over eyes, Wickes (£3.50 per roll)
NB Going by the poster, the upcoming 2025 production features the same costume track! -
hopefully the make-up pad has run out of yellow by now...

I love a good argument!  I'm not even very averse to a bad one, from time to time.  However, in this case I found myself frustrated - not because I was losing. Because I was shut out.  I was white, middle-class, privileged - I had no first hand experience of "feeling yellow," or racial discrimination - and therefore, my view was deemed worthless and therefore disregarded. I'm eager to concede that there is huge and irreplaceable value to be derived from those with lived experience, both in the perspective that it may offer and also in the profundity of subjective truth that it can unlock - however, doing so would not help me.  Even if one could change race, to do so just to win an argument would surely be the worst type of colonialism. 

With all other options off the table, it is to my great chagrin that my antagonistic-ape-brain conjured up for me a secondary, more obscure route by which I might enhance my credibility: "All you need to do" it whispered, "is become the world's expert in that field, and then, come back in 4 years time and retort "AHA! My opinion does matter!"

Stupid, petty, peevish ape-brain... why are you always inventing the most ridiculous strategies just to try and defend your overinflated ego?!

Six months later I was enrolled as a PhD candidate.

Aladdin (T = 12 months)

That Christmas we produced Aladdin at the Met in Bury.   It was the second time we'd staged the show - this time in a much bigger town with vastly different demographics.  Our production practices were informed by what I was learning - we tried different approaches to casting, rewrote the script to reflect different heritages of the actors, even remade a few costumes. However, I didn't lose sight of the main aim: vindication.

The production did end up with a more ethnically diverse cast, but it also had:

• Traditional Peking location
• Glittery Chinese set and cloths
• Chinese policemen
• An Empress in traditional style costume and black wig
• Hanfu inspired costumes
• A traditional Chinese liondancer costume
• Travel to Egypt
• Traditional laundry scene
• Traditional character names
• A gong sound effect
• The Old Bazaar in Cairo
• Sand dance choreography

It also had zero audience complaints, record box office takings, and excellent reviews across the board - including a review in the British Theatre Guide that acknowledged the production "sticks to its traditional setting... while avoiding any uncomfortable racial stereotyping" and "is made by people who clearly love the form."

"There," I thought, "that proves it - it can be done."  I should have felt vindicated, but actually, I felt like... I was answering the wrong question.

The tropes of Aladdin were solidified over 100 years ago, in Victorian Britain - a Britain that was very, very different to the country we live in today.  Not just demographically, but culturally, and also internationally.  The reasons why the Victorians included all these conventions in the panto have either dissipated or withered away.

"OK," I thought.  "So, you can defend Victorian Aladdin. But so what?  Why should we bother?"

If the Victorians used pantomime to build their identity, why shouldn't we?  If pantomime could help build an empire, what else could it do?  It seemed to me, these were much better questions!

★★★★★ 

"Pure family Christmas entertainment and everything you want for a fun filled two and a half hours (including interval), take the family and enjoy"

ABOUT MANCHESTER

 

Rumpelstiltskin (T = 12-24 months)

My first attempt to explore these questions was Rumpelstiltskin.  

No. Days to rehearse the play: 8
No. Days for Will to make the cartouche hang straight: 1.5

It was a familiar title with a mostly-forgotten story, which was great for me.  I bastardised the script and turned it into a play about otherisation and in-/out-grouping dynamics.  Even though the production felt super traditional, it challenged fundamental tenets of the form including what it means to be a villain and the Boalian positioning of the audience as spect-actors.  I loved turning everything upside down, encouraging the children to sell their souls to Rumpelstiltskin in act 1 and hearing the whole audience chanting spells for his revival by the end.  Dramaturgically it had such depth, we had some audience members weeping, yet we managed to deliver it with a lightness of touch that made it relatable for all ages.  It was in the words of the Manchester Evening News a "family crowdpleaser that punches well above its weight."

Nancy Penvose (left) was so dedicated to the role of Rumpelstiltskin
she purposefully lost 4" of height during rehearsal to make him appear more vulnerable

It was a great first foray into how panto could address issues of identity.  But it did so passively.  It was time to try a more active approach.

The Victorians didn't use panto to talk about identity, the used it to create identity.  "I'm going to have a go at that," I thought.  Then spent a few months wondering what identity I wanted to create.

A great fact I'd picked up somewhere from some book that I'm currently too lazy to look back up is: by 1900, 60% of all London pantomimes were staged at least partially in another country. Aladdin was incredibly popular, but even titles like Cinderella had been spruced up (with one production being set in Ethiopia) and seemingly every time we had a war (which was a lot of times, btw) some production of Jack and the Beanstalk would personify our opponent as the Giant.  That's all well and good if you're trying to inculcate an imperial identity within an ethically homogenous, not internationally travelling audience.  But I don't have one of those - so I'd have to do some more thinking.

The Hyperlocal Lens

During my research, I've been keeping a reading log.  I'm now up to about 300 books, which is about right for a PhD bibliography.  But unlike other PhD bibliographies, mine reads like marched through a library with a blunderbuss full library cards, randomly shooting at every disciplinary section and reading the first five books on any shelf I hit.  

Partly this is because when I started I was so ill-informed that I had to get up to base level on pretty much everything all at once.  I've read books on Victorian pantomime, the British Empire, Crip Theory, Feminist theory, Orientalism, Identity Theory, Identity Politics, Psychology, Post-Colonialism... you get the idea.

It was about this time, as I was getting immersed in Media Studies, that I came across the idea of hyperlocality: a way of thinking about geographically bounded shared cultural experience.  Or in other words, things made for people who live near each other.  It was a really interesting lens. Over the last 100 years, demographic shift had changed the make up of panto audiences so much that the rationale underpinning the conventions of the genre was increasingly unsound. Unlike Victorian audiences, modern pantogoers are not a sea of white, Christian, or even British faces - so what are they?  Well, unless you're producing the Palladium panto... they are all local.

This is a local pantomime for local people!

Ironically, Victorian panto producers were already onto this idea, long before Media Studies even existed.  The go-to academic on the topic of regional pantomime production 1860-1900 is Jill Sullivan who first showed in her PhD thesis (2005) "the available empirical evidence has served to foreground the pantomime text as an expression of local concerns and political interests that were particular to each town and displayed an acute awareness of issues of regional identity and status."  

Tip-off: Sullivan's book on the topic:  "The Politics of the Pantomime: Regional Identity in the Theatre 1860–1900" is a fantastic read for anyone interested in the topic (as it was particularly for me, as it has a plethora of specific examples of pantomimes staged in Manchester.)

These hyperlocal conventions seem to get slowly shed by commercial producers during the twentieth century, as mass media shrinks first the country and then the world.  Popular comedy routines become embedded, divorced from their original meaning and then stale.  The pursuit of economies of scale lead to the consolidation of regional contracts into large portfolios of a small number of national players.  The final death knell for hyper localism may well have been heard with the casting of international celebrities, as documented by the UKPA's Simon Sladen.

In the process, the form lost two things of immense value: urgent relevance and connection to their audiences.  I want them back.  And I think we can get them.

A note of caution: Victorian Pantomime production and contemporary practice face vastly different contemporary mores and demographies.  Victorian pantomimes reinforced local identity as a foil against London-centred homogenisation of extent regional cultures. Modern pantomime must respond to modern audiences who increasingly originate from diverse locations and may include transitory and immigrant populations with few or no long standing ties to the local area and/or theatre tradition.  When we use pantomime to reinforce local identity, we do so not to defend, but to create.  For the modern producer, hyperlocality is an action, not a reaction - and as such, demands a greater level of sophistication, forethought and precision in its application.

Mother Goose (T = 24 months)

The next iteration of my practice was a hyperlocal production of Mother Goose which we made from scratch specifically for Saddleworth.  I'm not the first person to reimagine this outdated story in the present moment - in our production, Mother Goose didn't wish for beauty or youth, but 100000 TikTok followers instead.  

Despite his best efforts, hyperlocal puppy Toby was largely ineffective at installing the set

Not only did we make it much more relevant for right now, at the same time we made great efforts to make it relevant right here. We made it hyperlocal.

I love Saddleworth, and so does my audience.  So it seemed like the natural place to set the story.  We went round the town taking photos of interesting and recognisable views - views which we then reimagined in our cloth designs.  Saddleworth is a rural community, so I dumped the demon and brought in a Fox... from Fox Entertainment in Media City, Manchester (the valley and the identity of those who live there is distinct from, and contrasted to their giant metropolis next door).  I wrote in dialect, and filmed VT sections around the town with local people and familiar faces, which we then projected as part of the show.  

Imaginary villain Phineas Fox played by real-life fox Tessa Vale 

Outside the auditorium I called town hall meetings and took polls on what the audience thought was important.  We visited local events throughout the year, in costume.  We engaged with local drama groups, schools and charities, running workshops and competitions.

It was in the production of this show that I felt, as a practitioner, the reward I had hoped would have come from our Chinese-Aladdin.  Aladdin had been my show.  Mother Goose was Saddleworth's show.  And the audience knew it!

Mother Goose led me to articulate another vital pillar of my theoretical framework: 

Meaning-Value and the Gifting Paradigm

When I had started, I had viewed meaning as a thing to be owned, as exemplified in thoughts such as: "You don't own the story Aladdin, just because you've got Chinese heritage," or "I can use my production to create my own meaning."

I have now come to understand that greater value of meaning is realised not through the act of claiming ownership over it, but through the act of giving ownership away.

Pantomime is a commercial form.  Producers make shows to sell.  The most successful and canny producers have a very firm understanding of their target audience: demography, price points, access requirements, celebrity draws. Their production processes are well-oiled machines, turning out palatable productions that equate to bums on seats.  One might say that these producers make these shows for their audience. This is a linguistic trick.  Actually, they make their shows for profit.  The pantomime production is a product, owned by the company, and rented out in 2-hour viewing slots to their target demographics. 

If a pantomime production were truly made for an audience, ownership must be exchanged.  Production processes are still acts of creation, but not of a product, but of a gift.   The distinction is hugely important.

A product is something you can buy off the shelf, generic, available to anyone, anywhere.  Commercial producers love making products - products are very profitable. They can be made to a blueprint by on a schedule, on a line, by workers who only do one thing. Products can be made from interchangeable parts so they are easy to replicated, standardised and predicted.  Products are replaceable.  When somebody buys a product, they buy one instance; the company retains the blueprints and the processes to turn out another instance, and another and so on ad infinity.

When you make a gift for someone, you do so with that person at the forefront of your mind - from the start to the end of the process/. You think about what they already have, and imagine what they might need or want or be delighted by. To make a gift is to make something bespoke, one-off, especially for them, especially by you.  When you give a gift, you relinquish control. It still remains your creation - just as one might recognise a painting as "a Picasso," without implying Picasso still owns it - it just stops being your thing.  

For all the reasons commercial producers love making products, they really don't like making gifts.  Even making a gift for someone you know takes thought, creativity and imagination - and the process is ten times harder if it's someone you only see once a year.  Worst of all, even if you make the perfect gift, once you've given it away, you have to start over again.  Different gifts suit different people - a fact much attestested to by, and at the annoyance of, every Christmas Eve shopper who wishes they could by 12 of one thing and call it quits.

5 signs your show is a product, not a gift.

1. The references are interchangeable.  
• "It could be worse, you could be in <insert name of local town>".
2. The jokes are replicated.  
• Same jokes as last year?  
• Same jokes as the production company other shows?
3. The roles are archetypes not characters.  
• The actors play DAME and COMIC, not SARAH and BILLY.
4. The costumes and set are a hodgepodge of what the producer/hire company/actor has in stock 
• "We'll work out something funny to say when he comes on during rehearsal."
• 
  
5. It contains scenes, routines or lines that somebody else wrote for some other play or film, for some other actors in some other context (and possibly some other generation.) 

• "We'll do that bit - you know that whatshisface does - does anyone remember how it goes?"

The Pied Piper of Hamelin (T= 36 months)

This year's production in Bury will be testbed for my theories and the culmination of my research.  Everything about the production is hyperlocal, from the ground up.  It's been a heck of a task to prep everything, but with 6 weeks until rehearsals, I've got a feeling we're going to give over something quite extraordinary to the people of Bury this Christmas.

There's no space left in this blog to explain how we've applied the lens of hyperlocalism, and the framework of meaning-gifting to all the different parts of our process.  If you want that kind of detail you'll have to wait for the 100,000 word thesis to come out sometimes next summer.  Not only am I recording my journey, I'm establishing recommendations for best practice - so we call all make panto better together.

Of course, if you don't want to wait that long, you can buy a ticket and come and see for yourself!

5 Signs to watch out for, that show The Pied Piper was made as a gift, not a product

(and good ideas to nab and reinvent in your own practice):

 

1.    Themes are relevant to this audience at this time. 

    Everyone in Bury gets a wish every time Bury FC are promoted

    The villain is seeking to develop the land beneath the market 

2.   Local references, characters and plot points hard baked into the script, not added on!

PEEWEE: Where are all the black puddings? Have you checked upper Ramsbottom?

BEA:          I did. I found something.  But it definitely wasn't black pudding.

          ORANGE PEEL: Quiet you two, or I'll invent the police and have you all arrested!

3.    Comedy and meaning emanate from the shared experience of the local audience.

Singing.

Market day in the borough of bury

half hour wait for a table at spoons

half a mile tailback into bury

Grind to a halt on

The b-road from Bolton

And you’ll be here soon!  

4.    Physical elements are designed or sourced specifically to facilitate the moments made by the script-in-performance.

 eg, The front cloth is a map of the town

the portals are Peel Tower and Bury Market sign

the mayor is costumed as an Orange (referencing famous Buryite Robert Peel)

5.    The community are engaged with during the process, not just at the moment of transaction.

Audition slots set aside for local residents.  Local casting.

Opportunities made available for local communities and creatives

Local businesses sponsoring access provision

Follow up surveys and opportunities for feedback

My Amazing Idea for a Mother Goose Costume and Why We're Not Going to Use it.

Not long now, boys and girls!

I live in Salford.

 

Honestly, it’s not as bad as it sounds.  I mean parts of it are, but those parts are a good 300m away from my house.  My street is full of panto producers and IT technicians.  Well, two panto producers and one IT technician.  It is a very short street.

 

However, the point is (was there a point?) you don’t have to stray far from the beaten track before you start seeing the word Juicy emblazoned gaily on female bottoms up and down the pavement.

An outfit I would never wear
or afford
or fit into

Now, this year we are producing Mother Goose in Saddleworth and Market Drayton, so OF COURSE, I wanted to have her appear in a pink jogging suit with the word GOOSEY across the bottom. 

 

For those that don’t know, Mother Goose is a morally coercive tale about a woman who sells her soul for beauty.  As a title, it’s become a lot more popular since Sir Ian did his tour (de-force?) a couple of years ago.  Most modern productions that I have seen try to update the very Victorian-Christian parable by thrusting the protagonist into a modern setting.  In these reimaginings, Mother Goose fritters away her newly begotten wealth on materialist trappings and twisted by the vainglory of her skin-deep-beauty becomes a shallow and grotesque mimicry of her previous self.  “So far, so non-blog-worthy,” I hear you ponder. (Would the people at the back, please ponder more quietly.  Thank you).  Oh, ye of little faith!  The sticking point comes in the fact that the common panto shorthand for materialistic and shallow is an upwardly-mobile working-class WAG.

 

Harry Harris' new book received ★★★★ from reviewers.
(Two stars from each).  Hurry - some copies still available!

Can’t you laugh at a WAG?  Of course you can, it’s a free country.  Laugh at whatever you like.  Furthermore, it’s a free market – produce whatever panto you like.  I do.

 

If I want to have a man come on in a woman’s romper suit with GOOSEY written in diamanté studding right across his bum cheeks – dagnammit, I will!  But I’m not going to.  Because I confess that, on balance, I am a teeny-tiny bit uncomfortable with staging a play in which I prompt the audience to laugh at someone for being working class.  The idea has more than a whiff of the Vicky Pollard about it.

I’m not saying you can’t find Vicky Pollard funny.  The same is true about GOOSEY in diamanté.  I think it is funny.  But I’m not sure that me-thinking-it’s-funny is funny, and I don’t think my audience would… a middle-class man pointing and laughing at working class women?!  It’s a gag I don’t mind leaving for somebody else.

Only £30.99!  Get them while they're hot!

 

And before I get accused of acquiescing to the cancel culture brigade, I’m not…

Honestly, I’m not.  I don’t mind sticking my head up above the parapet (as evidenced by my previous blog posts!).  

 

In fact, our production shies away entirely from class as a theme.  After all, vanity affects us all – regardless of class – doesn’t it?

 

I’m not the only panto producer having to wrestle with what jokes I should be making about whom.  Last year, Mother Goose at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham got slammed for overstepping their bounds with their vegan joke routine (“G is for gassy, A is for Annoying”).  Well, freedom of speech aside, I can’t help but agree with the journalist.  As a man who has lived hypocritically in an anarchic vegan circus commune, it seems blinkin’ obvious to me that whoever wrote these jokes isn’t a vegan.  For a start, they’re not true, and secondly, they’re not likely to be funny… to a vegan… that isn’t your personal friend.

 

Comedy is always going to be tricky to judge.  Funny often lies somewhere near the edge of safety, but a good heuristic for panto writers might be: if it’s a joke at someone else’s expense, don’t make it.

 

Even if you’re absolutely sure that the word play you’ve written confusing a rabbi and a rabbit is hilarious, and that no-one could possibly be offended when the dame comes on with floppy ears and ringlets, it’s probably best if you leave that gag for the Jewish panto.  Or, better yet, if you’re sure it’s a winner, email Nick Cassenbaum and gift the idea!  Imagine the bragging rights you’d get down the pub if it ends up getting included!  

You getting fangirled in the pub after getting a gag in Nick Cassenbaum's script

 

A note of caution

 

Even if you belong to a community, it mightn’t mean you have carte blanche to say what you want.  

At our in-house creative team readthrough of (what I had hoped was the final draft of) Aladdin, I was a bit perplexed when a sequence that sounded hilarious in my head raised a few eyebrows around the table.  

 

The sequence involved three metatextual gay jokes, centred around the stage direction “enter genie behind a big poof/puff.” (The poof in question shall remain nameless, but if you’re reading this, you know who you are!”)

 

The jokes were funny.  Preposterous.  Wordplay.  Nothing graphic, lewd or remotely suggestive.  And what’s more, I’m a gay writer, we’re a gay led theatre company, the actor in question (a dear dear friend) is gay, and furthermore, it’s 2024 so really – who gives a shit?  Certainly not the open-minded, progressive audience members of the West Yorkshire hills. 

TOP TIP: If Les Dennis isn't laughing, the joke isn't funny...

 

What I had failed to factor in (of course) is that none of those things were necessarily clear to the audience.  To someone who’d just come in off the street, all they’d have seen was someone come on and passive-aggressively out someone one stage in front of an auditorium full of people.* 

 

   (*97% full on average)

 

Of course, if you’re doing a gay panto, the fact that the actors are gay is pretty baked in (if you are doing a gay panto Aladdin and would like to use this joke, feel free… I will even waive my co-writing credit).  However, our panto’s not a gay panto (unbelievably – to anyone meeting the cast in the bar after hours), it’s a family panto, and even people who joke about gays with their mates probably don’t bring them home to their families.

 

Thankfully, my wonderful husband and company producer, Will Cousins, (huge managed to push me off the idea before scripts went out to actors.  I’m glad that he did.  I went with the rabbi/rabbit bit instead.

The Big Tiny's 2024 production of Mother Goose, coming to a theatre near you this Christmas*
*provided you live near Market Dragon or Saddleworth.  Limited tickets still available!

Defending Aladdin: Argument from Cultural Contagion

Aladdin, Birmingham Hippodrome (2015)
Photo by Keith Pattison

Whilst undertaking my research, I have encountered a number of distinct arguments made for the discontinuation of productions of Aladdin set in China. The subject matter is profound and many people's opinions are informed by their own personal experience – it is therefore no surprise that I have encountered nearly as many different viewpoints as I have people. 

 

Broadly speaking, the arguments are usually variations on 1 of 5 themes: 

 

1. The Argument from Personal Experience of Racism 
2. The Argument for Diversity and Inclusion 
3. The Argument against Cultural Appropriation 
4. The Argument against the Perpetuation of Negative Stereotypes 
5. The Argument of Cultural Contagion 

 

Each argument approaches the question from a different direction, and each is worthy of consideration.

 

In this response I will consider the one I consider the most compelling - the argument from cultural contagion. The appraisal of which, as we will see, requires fastidious and robust logic. 

 

🀀

THE ARGUMENT OF CULTURAL CONTAGION 

 

1.     The Chinese empire was colonised by the British during the 19th century 

 

2.    During this period, the British constructed an idea of China that was paternalistic, condescending and unrealistic

 

3.     During the colonial period, the British state visited economic and military atrocities upon the people of China 

 

4.    The effects of colonisation upon China are still ongoing 

 

5.     It was during this colonial period that the dramatic conventions associated with pantomime productions of Aladdin were developed and codified 

 

6.    The conventions used in pantomimes of Aladdin are the tainted products of a colonial mindset which denigrate people of Chinese heritage

 

7.      Contemporary productions of Aladdin which are set in China necessarily perpetuate the problematic effects of the colonial mindset 

 

 

             

THEREFORE 

 

White British producers should not stage productions of Aladdin  

which are set in China. 

 🀀

 

At first blush, this argument seems persuasive. It is logical, provides adequate context and appeals to a universal sense of natural justice.  

 

Indeed, the consideration of this argument has led me to do a great deal of reading around the subject – and no doubt there is much more that I could usefully do. However, upon reflection, I believe the conclusion, though persuasive, is unsound.  

 

The refutation requires nuance and considerable contextual exposition. However, not only do I argue that the premises unsafe, I will go on to argue that the conclusion relies on a tacit, uncertain claim to knowledge. 

 

  🀀

CONTEXTUAL EXPOSITION 

 

The rapid expansion of the British Empire into Asia during the 19th century was unprecedented. 

 

Sino-European relations during the pre-modern era were characterised by the Chinese Imperial boon of limited trading dispensations bestowed upon sea-faring merchants. The boons allowed trading only within the predesignated boundaries of Canton.1 

Sale of English goods in Guangzhou (Canton), China, 1858.

 

At the beginning of this period, China was a wealthy but fading imperial power, leading the world economy (alongside Mughal India) in the production of high-value commercial goods such as porcelain, silk and spices. By contrast, European traders found they had little of value to trade in return. Compared to oriental silks, Europe’s main export commodity: wool was inferior, bulky and not highly prized. The only goods that Asian merchants wanted from their European trading partners were precious metals which were mined by enslaved peoples in huge quantities in the Americas and shipped Eastward in exchange for desirable commodities.

"Chinese merchants did not simply pursue bullion; they sought one particular metal; silver"  

Richard von Glahn, Myth and Reality of China’s Seventeenth-Century Monetary Crisis. ( 

The Journal of Economic History, vol. 56, no. 2, 1996, pp. 429–54.

Thus, the period of pre-modern Sino-European trade can best be understood as one of West-to-East- wealth transfer.

"The enormous demand for Chinese silk and ceramics in the world market transformed China into a "sink of silver" that absorbed most of the bullion originating in the Americas" 

Hung, H. (2001). Imperial China and Capitalist Europe in the Eighteenth-Century  

Global Economy. Review (Fernand Braudel Center), 24(4), 473–513.

So unbalanced was the economic dynamic that there are countless tales of desperate European merchants being turned away at ports, exiled for petty grievances, or forced to kowtow to access the lucrative Chinese markets. The Chinese state maintained a monopoly on violence within the factories – any merchant not playing nicely was dealt with swiftly and decisively. 

Sino-European trade increased throughout the 18th century, and by the turn of the century, British commercial interests were heavily invested in Chinese supply chains. 

 

The dates are important. Britain became the first country to undergo the Industrial Revolution (1760s-1800s). The productivity of British labour increased exponentially. British industry suddenly experienced huge manufacturing surpluses which in turn slashed the relative prices of British goods on the international markets. 

 

So stark was the increase in output and consistency of manufacturing, the pre-industrial societies with which Britain was trading could not compete.

Asian markets were flooded with British goods and their domestic industries collapsed. Private companies increasingly employed private militias in an attempt to protect their lucrative revenue streams. In the span of just a few decades, Britain experienced a gigantic and rapid reversal of fortune; wealth transferred from East-to-West and gold poured into company coffers in London. 

The Chinese Empire faced turmoil: the economy was ravaged, businesses closed, the Imperial treasury was depleted. Unemployment and hunger skyrocketed. In an attempt to defend China's domestic markets, the Emperor erected an array of barriers to trade including tariffs, price controls, import quotas and the seizure of private goods. The implementation of these controls put China and Britain on a collision-course towards armed conflict. Both empires deployed their military might in an attempt to defend their economic interests fighting a succession of bloody conflicts.

 

Destroying Chinese Junks by Edward Duncan -
 Public Domain

It was not clear who would be victorious, and both sides pressed their advantage.  However, it was Britain – buoyed with industrially manufactured weapons – who emerged victorious. 

 

Redolent in victory, Britain dismantled trade barriers. After a few years, the Chinese emperor once more declared war on Britain. This time, the defeat was even more resounding, resulting in the treaty of Nanjing and the ceding of Hong Kong. 

 

From this point on (1840s-1900s) the British Empire capitalised on their industrial advantage. Domestic Chinese production withered, and the British Empire took full advantage of its role as a global hegemon. The tools of the British state were employed in increasingly ideological attempts to impose British culture on the peoples of the East – leaders were coerced, battles were waged, indigenous workers were exploited and the lives of others were traded in return for Croesus-evoking profits. 

 

 

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EXAMINING THE PREMISES 

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1. The Chinese empire was colonised by the British during the 19th century 

 

Britain did not colonise China in the same way as it did India during the Raj. However, there is some merit in viewing Sino-British trade on 19th Century through a colonial lens. Following military defeat, British merchants and diplomats imposed their will upon the Chinese Empire, whether the people liked it or not. There was no rule by consent. Furthermore, it is undoubtedly true that in the name of Empire, huge injustices were perpetrated against the people of China.  

 

Political cartoon about the Open Door Policy.

However, we must be careful not to be blinkered by the benefit of hindsight. The relationship between China and Britain in the 19th Century was one of two mighty empires, each boasting a vast military, both seeking to project power over the other, standing toe-to-toe with each other in the pursuit of economic dominance. Of course, we know now that Britain emerged victorious, and exploited this victory evermore so as the century drew to a close. if you wanted to go back and take a snapshot of relations in 1900, you may indeed find the analogy of colonisation fitting. 

 

However, not every year is 1900. For centuries, China exerted control and power over British merchants, humiliating diplomats and collecting untold wealth. In recent years, China has once again been in the ascendancy: the PRC economy dwarfs that of UK, and (particularly since Brexit) British diplomats once again lobby Chinese leaders for special dispensations to trade. 

 

Take a snapshot of Sino-British relations in 1600 or 2023 and you would find a very different picture. 

 

It is not clear to me that in contemporary characterisation of the relationship between Britain and China, we should privilege one 50-year period from centuries ago, over everything else. 

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2. During this period, the British constructed an idea of China that was paternal, condescending and unrealistic  

 

It is true that between 1850-1900, British colonialists constructed an ideal of Chinese culture as increasingly effeminate, philosophical and esoteric. We see as much in the myriad artistic representations of “the Orient” that proliferate during the late Victorian period. 

 

Attributed to Studio of Tingqua (Chinese, 1809-1870)

However, it is not clear to me that it is reasonable to take this observation and extrapolate a gestalt caricature of Britain and British people as colonial oppressors. It goes without saying that the vast majority of people in 19th century Britain never visited China – they didn't know any Chinese people – they didn't border-hop with any opium shipments, they didn't fight any Chinese armies. Yes, the industrial revolution started in Britain, but for most British people, it brought factory work, long hours and pollution – not the filthy lucre of international trade. 

 

Indeed, for the most part, scholars agree that the decades immediately preceding military engagement (1770-1830) are ones in which Chinese culture is venerated, extolled and mimicked by the British.  

 

Not every Victorian was Clive of India or Prince Albert. British people in Britain were by-and-large exploited by the same wealthy group of capitalists that pressed the British state to move against China. In the nearly 250 years that British people have been going to the theatre to watch pantomimes of Aladdin set in China, they have gone there to be wowed – to be blown away – to be transported to a wonderful world of luxury, mystery and ancient grandeur. 

 

It is not apparent to me what moral harm is wrought by seeking entertainment in someone else’s culture. 

 

Of course, you may point to specific productions and/or conventions of yesteryear that now seem hideously xenophobic (buck teeth, heavy eye makeup, faahny voyse). But that overlooks the fact that we have (by and large) left those tropes in the distant past. Yes, the industry can always improve... if I saw a production where the actors were taking the mick, I'd get up and leave with you. But when was the last time you saw that on stage? Unfortunately, it has become de rigueur of late to lambast any productions set in China – simply having a Chinese costume, or playing Chinese music is enough to provoke cries of “racism.” But deliberately tarring all productions with the dirtiest of brushes is not only disingenuous, it risks diverting the attention of the well-intending observer away from the occasional production that is genuinely problematic. 

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3. During the colonial period, the British state visited economic and military atrocities upon the people of China 

 

It is true that, applying contemporary mores, the apparatus of the British Empire was employed to commit atrocities against the Chinese population. It's a historical truism that the victor enjoys the spoils of his success at the expense of those over whom he is victorious. The actions of the British Empire can certainly be viewed through this lens. 

 

However, it is dishonest to weaponise contemporary reflection on the foreign policies of modern Brits’ great-great-grandfathers' liege lord’s diplomats in an attempt to granfalloon the present population into a state of perpetual, primordial guilt.

Storming the fortress of Amoy, 1841

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4. The effects of colonisation upon China are still ongoing  

 

"The Western invasion in the 19th century greatly expanded foreign trade, which brought new goods and ideas to China... The opening of the Suez-Canal (1869) and the telegraph (1871) changed the way business was done in China – and none of this would have happened without China’s opening under pressure in the 1840s. Like it or not, the legacy of the opening of China by force in the 19th century are being felt today."

• Ben Li et al, China's soaring foreign trade: Made in Britain c. 1840 (2010)
 

I'm sure there may be lingering impacts of colonialism on Chinese culture. As Ben Li goes on to explain:

"As we discuss in Keller et al. (2010), China’s role in world trade today is shaped in part by the post-1978 market reforms and in part by foreign trade several centuries ago."

ibid

But it is a stretch to argue that these are in some way definitive. Realistically, to what extent is the state of the Chinese economy contingent on British gunboat diplomacy of the 1800s? More-so than as a result of the occupation by Japan? More than two world wars? More than the Chinese civil war? The decades of Maoist oppression, purges and secret police? More than the millions starved to death during the great leap forward? 

 

I think not. . 

It's true that Britain benefited from Empire, but the expansion of the British Empire owed as much to the industrial revolution and the concomitant exploitation of British workers in the dark Satanic Mills of Manchester, as it does to the capitalisation of foreign markets. 

I get it, life was rubbish if you were Chinese 200 years ago. Life was pretty rubbish if you were British 200 years ago.  

As a case in point, here's a fab quote from one of the books I've been reading that shows how the tropes of Orientalism were applied not only to the people's of the East, but to the working classes back in Blighty:

“... as early as 1851 in London Labour and the London Poor, Henry Mayhew uses the travel writing tropes of “the most distant tribes of the earth” and “the undiscovered country” to describe the Eng­lish urban poor, as well as describing them as “our own heathen,” who are living in “the lowest depths of barbarism.”

    Valeri Kennedy, Orientalism in the Victorian Era  (2017)

Thank goodness we all live here and now, in our peaceful, internationally-oriented, industrial world. Why don't we get on and enjoy it? 

 

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5. It was during this colonial period that the dramatic conventions associated with pantomime productions of Aladdin were developed and codified  

 

It is true that many of the modern conventions of Aladdin were codified during the colonial period. These include:  

• The Dame’s name is Twankey 
• They live in a laundry  
• Her son is called Wishee Washee 
• Chinese costumes 
• Chinese style entrance stings 
• The comedic duo of the Chinese policemen

 

However, considering each individual charge, I'm not entirely sure what is so morally repugnant. 

 

Dan Leno as Widow Twankey, 1896

• The Dame’s name is Twankey  

 

For those who don't know: Twankey's was a brand of cheap Chinese tea, popular with Victorians. You did know that, didn’t you? 

 

No, of course you didn’t. No real, actual person knows the brand-names of Victorian teabags. In fact, as far I can tell, the only discernible reason that anyone has to know Twankey is named after a teabag is so they can use it to claim that it's racist. 

 

The dame is a poor widow – why shouldn’t she be named after a cheap teabag? It's only akin to being “Widow Typhoo” - what's the big fuss? Here's a clue for you: if you have to give someone a lesson on tea bags to explain why a character’s name is racist – it (effectively) isn't racist. 

 

• They live in a laundry

 

During the 19th century, a very small number of Chinese immigrants (mostly sailors on East India Company ships) settled near the docks in Limehouse in London. However, as recent immigrants, they struggled to access the professions (owing to a lack of social capital, exacerbated by the wariness of indigenous Brits towards foreigners), and over time, many of these immigrants set up and managed laundries. For context, there were vanishingly few Chinese expats living in Britain until after WW1 – the 1921 census records only 337 Chinese born citizens living in Britain2.  As a result, there was a significant stretch of time in which the limited experience that indigenous Brits had interacting with immigrants of Chinese heritage, were in and around laundries. The legacy of this quirk of history is that Twankey also works in a laundry.  

 

Why is that problematic? It isn't a comment on anyone nowadays. Does having a scene in a laundry insinuate a belief that all British-Chinese citizens should work or do work in laundries? Of course not! No more than productions of Jack and the Beanstalk insinuate that every boy who grows up on a small holding propagates beanstalks from their compost heaps. Again, some context: the period in which Chinese-born nationals worked predominantly in laundries is scarcely within living memory. When was the last time you opened a newspaper to read “Skinheads mock Chinese immigrants with racist references to textile-cleaning"? For someone to be genuinely aggrieved that a pantomime includes a laundry scene, they'd have to be over 100 years old. 

Chinese laundry postcard

 

• Her son is called Wishee Washee  

 

Wishee Washee is called Wishee Washee because he works in a laundry, washing clothes. It's a play on words – as in: "my son is Wishy-washy, the common adjectival descriptor meaning indefinite or moonish." Unless the British Empire stole wordplay from China, I'm not entirely sure what the problem is. 

Look at my husband being cutesy!

 

• Chinese costumes 

 

What is the fuss about wearing Chinese costumes? They're costumes... based on the real-life, actual historical clothes worn by people from China hundreds of years ago. It's not as if British-Chinese citizens are walking the streets of Manchester wearing Qing-dynasty shot-silk Hanfu rompers on a day-to-day basis. The costume of the Emperor of China (historical or pantomime) is equally as exotic to every single soul born on this island. To try and claim special ownership over the look and feel of a costume, the likes-of-which you have never, ever worn, nor seen in the flesh outside of a stage show is frankly preposterous. What is the corollary? That being born white British imbues you with a sacred connection to Elizabethan doublet and hose? 

Chinese Princess Costume

 

Costumes are celebrations of colour and fabric, cut and trimming. Can we not celebrate them together? 

 

• Chinese style entrance stings 

 

A similar defence can be mounted with regard to Chinese-style instrumentation. There is a reason why Aladdin soundstacks are awash with gongs and flutes... because traditional Chinese music is awash with gongs and flutes. It is a pastiche. Does it imply a belief that all people of Chinese extraction have Chinesey underscores every time they enter a room? Of course not! It just means that Chinese music sounds a bit like this... “ “... and it does! Not all Chinese music. Not every song goes just like that. But these instruments, these tonal combinations, are found in traditional Chinese orchestration. It's not a judgement; it's not a dig,; it's an observation.

 

• The comedic duo of the Chinese policemen
   

Much is made of the appropriateness of having Chinese Policemen. Well, if you have a play set in China, what nationality would you expect the policemen to be? Some take exception to the names Ping and Pong - imagining that the audience extrapolate all their expectations of Chinese names from a panto script. OK, this one I concede. Not because I'm entirely convinced that it's truly problematic (The Pong are one of the most ancient clans of China tracing their heritage back to 11073... and there have been two Chinese emperors called Ping!)

However, a weak reference to table tennis is not a hill I'm particularly eager to die on – in my script, the policemen are called Sergeant Pepper and PC World, and they wear blue cord with black and white check flashing, instead of a kuli hat with a clip-on pigtail.

Is it a problem that they're buffoonish and dim-witted? I'm not convinced. The henchmen are always buffoonish and dim-witted... that's the stock character – whether they're Chinese or not. If you want to argue that it reinforces a view of Chinese people as clownish stereotypes, you'll have to argue why the character Aladdin isn't reinforcing a stereotype of Chinese as bold and handsome, or Jasmine as regal and demure. Characters are characters. They can only be understood within the narrative in which they are placed. Not every character represents every person. 

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6. The conventions used in pantomimes of Aladdin are the tainted products of a colonial mindset which denigrate Chinese people. 

 

There is a growing trend in some circles to assume the most negative interpretation possible. If something references nationality, it's automatically racist. If someone makes a joke about gender, it's automatically sexist.

 

What a pity! Doing so risks more than throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater. It warps our perception, pollutes our ability to commune with each other, taints our paradigm until all we can see is trauma, hurt and blame. 

 

Can you find racism in Britain today? Unfortunately, yes. 

 

Can you still find racist panto productions of Aladdin? If you go looking for one, I imagine so – yes. 

 

But that is not typical. There are some wonderful productions out there. Shows made with love, attention to detail and in celebration of Chinese culture. How can you tell which is which? There's only one way... go and watch them. 

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7. Contemporary productions of Aladdin which are set in China necessarily perpetuate the problematic effects of the colonial mindset 

 

Pantomime is a live theatre art. It is made on stage with the audience. That's when the magic happens: when audience, performers, tech, creatives, all come together and commune. Before that moment, it doesn't exist. 

 

For there to be problems right from the start requires someone else to have brought them in with them. 

 

We are not doomed to carry around the sins of our forefathers. The tears our grandparents shed don't have to stop us from laughing today. 

 

And yes, things aren't always as we would like. We can all do our bit towards improving our practice. But if we can take a wide view, relax and have fun, everybody will benefit. 

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A FURTHER REBUTTAL OF THE CONCLUSION 

 

As we have seen, the premises of the argument from cultural contagion are far from sound. Many of the “established facts” are shown to be subjective and can easily be contested. 

 

However, even if we were to accept the premises, the conclusion is not foregone. The whole argument is predicated on the tacit assumption that meaning is something that can be owned. This is not an obvious truth. Nor is it something I accept. 

 

Meaning emerges from the interaction between the perceiver and the perceived. I will concede that some people feel that setting Aladdin in China carries problematic meanings for them. But the key words here are: for them. Their meaning is personal and subjective to them.  

 

Wisdom starts when we acknowledge that everyone else experiences their own meaning as well. All of them equally valid. You cannot own a folk story any more than you can own a handshake. The folk tales on which pantos are based are vestiges of humanities common cultural heritage. A story about a boy in Peking, told by a Syrian storyteller to a French collector of folk stories, and performed on the British stage since 1781.

 

Arguments that seek to establish a hierarchy of ownership predicated on who people are is as narcissistic as it is futile. What benefit could it possibly bring you to have more right to understand a story than somebody else? What bitter parsimony would seek to exclude other people from making their own meaning and owning their own understanding.