Pantomime dame
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A pantomime dame is a traditional character in British pantomime. It is a continuation of en travesti portrayal of female characters by male actors in drag. They are often played either in an extremely camp style, or else by men acting 'butch' in women's clothing. They wear big make up and big hair, have exaggerated physical features, and perform in a melodramatic style.
Examples of these characters are: Widow Twankey in "Aladdin", the Nanny or Nurse in "Sleeping Beauty", Jack's mother in "Jack and the Beanstalk", Jim Hawkins' mother in "Treasure Island" and Sinbad's mother in "Treasure Island" as well as the cook in "Dick Whittington". In productions of "Cinderella", one may find that there are two dames in the script, who are the Ugly Sisters.
In Monty Python's Flying Circus (Episode 30) non-British viewers were puzzled by the nature-film sequence in which the Pantomime Princess Margaret, lurking in the undergrowth, harpooned a silver breakfast tray that was scuttling down the woodland trail: "The unsuspecting breakfast glides ever closer to its doom..."
The name of the character Dame Edna Everage plays on two meanings of dame, this tradition and that of the courtesy title that is equivalent to Sir.
