A mix of merriment, music and mayhem makes panto a beloved British holiday tradition

LONDON (AP) — Here’s a recipe as essential to Christmas in Britain as turkey, tinsel and mince pies.

Mix a fairy-tale plot with topical references, slapstick, song, dance and double entendres. Drench in sequins and spangles, mix vigorously, add some noisy audience participation, and you have a panto.

Pantos — short for pantomimes — are stage musicals that play at theaters big and small across the U.K. each winter. Formulaic but anarchic, family friendly but a little risque, they are a holiday tradition that give many children their first exposure to live theater — and adults a chance to cut loose.

Anyone who thinks Britons are buttoned up hasn't been to a panto. Audiences happily shed their inhibitions – cheering, singing, hissing the villain, shouting “He’s behind you!” to warn the hero.

“It’s singing, dancing, laughing — taking the family out and being able to be out with their kids and letting the kids run riot,” said Clive Rowe, who directed and stars in “Dick Whittington and his Cat” at the Hackney Empire — his 17th annual panto for the storied east London theater.

Pantomime has deep roots, stretching back to the stock characters and bawdy humor of the 16th-century Italian commedia dell’arte and the French harlequinade, as well as the English music hall. By the late 19th century, the elements had gelled into a form still recognizable today.

The plots are drawn from well-known fairy tales and children’s stories such as “Aladdin,” “Snow White” and “Cinderella.” Characters include a plucky hero, or “principal boy,” often played by a woman, an outrageous villain, and a “dame,” a sharp-tongued matron who is always played by a man in fabulously flamboyant drag.

“The pantomime dame is the beating heart of the show,” said Simon Sladen, curator of theater and performance at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. “She is that engine that drives it. Firstly with pace and anarchy, but also a little bit of sauce on the side.”

An estimated 3 million people in Britain attend a pantomime each year, in venues ranging from small regional theaters to London West End playhouses. Many theaters rely on them for a big chunk of their annual income.

When London’s theaters were closed for months by pandemic lockdowns in 2020, panto dames led a protest march through the city to stress their importance to the creative economy.

They provide seasonal work to faded pop stars, television entertainers, the occasional Hollywood celebrity — Pamela Anderson took Liverpool by storm when she starred in “Aladdin” in 2010, singing “Santa Baby” while suspended on a swing above the stage, dressed in costumes by Vivienne Westwood.

They are also vital experience for many young actors, including the A-listers of tomorrow.

Jude Law told The Associated Press recently that he’d played Humpty Dumpty, recalling his performance as “loud and round.” At 17, Michael Fassbender played one of Cinderella’s Ugly Sisters, and a tree.

“Wicked” star Jonathan Bailey starred alongside a young Nicholas Hoult in a production of “Peter Pan.” Hoult also appeared in “Mother Goose” as a child, and says he would happily do another, as they’re “really fun.”

Asked to sum up the art form, Bailey called it a “quintessentially British bloody good time for all the family.”

Today’s pantos often strive to reflect diversity, both onstage and in the audience. Rowe, whose Hackney Empire pantos draw many of their cast and crew from Britain’s Black communities, said that at its core the genre is “about acceptance.”

“It’s about understanding, it’s about the idea that being different isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” he said. “It should be brought in and kind of celebrated and that no matter where you are in society, from the youngest to the oldest, we all have a place and we should embrace that.”

Drag performer Ginger Johnson, starring in an adult “all-drag panto” version of “Peter Pan” at London’s Phoenix Theatre, said that panto’s ability to change is “why it’s managed to survive for so long as a cultural form.”

“I think for a lot of kids, panto is the first time that they come in contact with drag as well,” Johnson said.

Stage historian Sladen said that some are leaning into the drag element of panto, with “a bigger, wider explosion of roles than just the dame and the principal boy being cross-dressed.”

“We might see the fairy godmother played by a dame or played by a drag artist. We might see a wicked stepmother, also played by a very well-known drag performer. So (it’s) constantly evolving, constantly changing with the times.”

Jill Lawless contributed to this report.

Kandaka Moore as Dick Whittington poses during a photocall for Hackney Empire's 25th pantomime in London, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

Beth Sindy as Fairy Bowbells and Kat B as Thomas the Cat, appear on stage during a photocall for Hackney Empire's Dick Whittington and His Cat in London, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

Graham MacDuff as King Rat strikes a pose on stage during a photocall for Hackney Empire's Dick Whittington and His Cat in London, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

Kat B as Thomas the Cat and Kandaka Moore as Dick Whittington perform during a photocall for Hackney Empire's 25th pantomime in London, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

Kat B as Thomas the Cat performs during a photocall for Hackney Empire's 25th pantomime in London, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

Clive Rowe as Dame Sarah the Cook poses on stage during a photocall for Hackney Empire's 25th pantomime, Dick Whittington and His Cat, in London, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

Olivier Award-winner Clive Rowe (right) performs as Dame Sarah the Cook during a photocall for Hackney Empire's Dick Whittington and His Cat in London, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

Olivier Award-winner Clive Rowe (right) performs as Dame Sarah the Cook during a photocall for Hackney Empire's Dick Whittington and His Cat in London, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

FRANKFORT, Kentucky (AP) — Days of unrelenting heavy rain and storms that killed at least 18 people worsened flooding as some rivers rose to near-record levels and inundated towns across an already saturated U.S. South and parts of the Midwest.

Cities ordered evacuations and rescue crews in inflatable boats checked on residents in Kentucky and Tennessee, while utilities shut off power and gas in a region stretching from Texas to Ohio.

“As long as I’ve been alive — and I’m 52 — this is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Wendy Quire, the general manager at the Brown Barrel restaurant in downtown Frankfort, Kentucky, the state capital built around the swollen Kentucky River.

“The rain just won’t stop,” Quire said Sunday. “It’s been nonstop for days and days.”

Officials diverted traffic and turned off utilities to businesses in the city as the river was expected to crest above 49 feet Monday to a record-setting level, said Frankfort Mayor Layne Wilkerson. The city's flood wall system is designed to withstand 51 feet of water.

For many, there was a sense of dread that the worst was still to come.

“This flooding is an act of God,” said Kevin Gordon, a front desk clerk at the Ashbrook Hotel in downtown Frankfort. The hotel was offering discounted stays to affected locals.

The 18 reported deaths since the storms began on Wednesday included 10 in Tennessee. A 9-year-old boy in Kentucky was caught up in floodwaters while walking to catch his school bus. A 5-year-old boy in Arkansas died after a tree fell on his family’s home, police said. A 16-year-old volunteer Missouri firefighter died in a crash while seeking to rescue people caught in the storm.

The National Weather Service warned Sunday that dozens of locations in multiple states were expected to reach a “major flood stage,” with extensive flooding of structures, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure possible.

In north-central Kentucky, emergency officials ordered a mandatory evacuation for Falmouth and Butler, towns near the bend of the rising Licking River. Thirty years ago, the river reached a record 50 feet (15 meters), resulting in five deaths and 1,000 homes destroyed.

The storms come after the Trump administration cut jobs at NWS forecast offices, leaving half of them with vacancy rates of about 20%, or double the level of a decade ago.

Forecasters attributed the violent weather to warm temperatures, an unstable atmosphere, strong winds and abundant moisture streaming from the Gulf.

The NWS said 5.06 inches (nearly 13 centimeters) of rain fell Saturday in Jonesboro, Arkansas — making it the wettest day ever recorded in April in the city. Memphis, Tennessee, received 14 inches (35 centimeters) of rain from Wednesday to Sunday, the NWS said.

Rives, a northwestern Tennessee town of about 200 people, was almost entirely underwater after the Obion River overflowed.

Domanic Scott went to check on his father in Rives after not hearing from him in a house where water reached the doorstep.

“It’s the first house we’ve ever paid off. The insurance companies around here won’t give flood insurance to anyone who lives in Rives because we’re too close to the river and the levees. So if we lose it, we’re kind of screwed without a house,” Scott said.

In Dyersburg, Tennessee, dozens of people arrived over the weekend at a storm shelter near a public school clutching blankets, pillows and other necessities. Just days earlier the city was hit by a tornado that caused millions of dollars in damage.

Among them was George Manns, 77, who said he was in his apartment when he heard a tornado warning and decided to head to the shelter. Just days earlier the city was hit by a tornado that caused millions of dollars in damage.

“I grabbed all my stuff and came here,” said Mann, who brought a folding chair, two bags of toiletries, laptops, iPads and medications: “I don’t leave them in my apartment in case my apartment is destroyed."

For others, grabbing the essentials also meant taking a closer look at the liquor cabinet.

In Frankfort, with water rising up to his window sills, resident Bill Jones fled his home in a boat, which he loaded with several boxes of bottles of bourbon.

Izaguirre reported from New York. Kruesi reported from Nashville. Associated Press writers Bruce Schreiner in Shelbyville, Kentucky; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Adrian Sainz in Memphis; Tennessee; Sarah Raza in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Obed Lamy in Rives, Tennessee; and Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed to this report.

Carole Smith walks through her flooded home on Saturday, April 5, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

Search and rescue firefighters carry a boat to a flooded neighborhood on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

A flooded neighborhood is seen on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

Road crews work to clear Lee County Rd. 681 in Saltillo, Miss, Sunday, April 6, 2025, of downed trees that blocked the road following the severe weather that passed through the area Saturday night. (Thomas Wells /The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal via AP)

CORRECTS TO MICHAEL NOT MICHALE Michael Scott Memering looks out of his trailer after evacuating the Licking River RV Campground that was flooded by the rising waters of the Licking River, seen behind, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Falmouth, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Bill Jones pulls his boat ashore, filled with bottles of bourbon, from a flooded home near the banks of the Kentucky River on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

Search and rescue firefighters conduct wellness checks in a neighborhood on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

Abner Wagers stands near flooded homes in the rising waters of the Kentucky River in Monterey, Ky,. Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

The flooded downtown area is seen on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

Search and rescue firefighters speak to a resident in a flooded neighborhood on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

A group of people survey damage at Pounders Mobile Home Park following a strong line of storms in the area in Muscle Shoals, Ala, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (Dan Busey/The TimesDaily via AP)

Search and rescue firefighters conduct wellness checks in a neighborhood on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

Abner Wagers walks in the rising waters of the Kentucky River on a flooded Monterey Pike in Monterey, Ky., Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Abner Wagers, right, and Brayden Baker, both with the Monterey Volunteer Fire Department, walk in the rising waters of the Kentucky River near a flooded home in Monterey, Ky., Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

the rising waters of Cedar Creek and the Kentucky River overflow their banks, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Monterey, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)