Hi there! I'm Kathy Mak who currently lives in Hong Kong and I've created this channel to share my life as a performer and some random fun things that will hopefully entertain you!
On this channel, you can expect things from behind the scenes videos of me in the theatre, tutorials, tips, sharing my life experiences, and funny stuff that I hope will cheer you up.
We, up in Scotland, play pranks that increase as the run goes on. The audience also celebrate mess ups by the cast, much to out annoyance. This, I think, makes you feel the show that night is unique.
On the subject of closing night pranks, a recurring theme in our local pantomime would always be for the crew to put something wholly inappropriate in a box that is usually opened and revealed to the audience. The result was the actor who opened the box laughing at the item in the box and then having to ad-lib something to explain why they were not going to show it to the audience as they had done on every other night.
Below is the link to the original version Kathy "performed" in the street in Hong Kong. Perfect shooting and sound for use in the classroom. A must for teachers of English as a foreign language: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6IOS7-4n12c.html
I believe it wasn't developed in England. It has been going on since classical theatre across western Europe. Pantomime came to the UK from France. I am British and even I know it isn't a British invention.
Vancouver BC has many productions of Pantos each year and I don't think I've seen those kinds of pranks played. You nailed the explanation! Does HK do on demand/livestream? ...would love to tune in....
Thank you for your outline on pantomime, Kathy, and how it celebrates and replays some event or another from the past. It got me to wondering about another possible purpose of pantomime. Do you know of any pantomime that was ever performed, to try to force an event into the future? An event such as, the earnest hope that the wishes of the performers, and the crowd watching, would be brought to real life, by the staged performance of it?
Hii, What is the thing that contribute to today's British Pantomime in 2:22 in the video? Maybe I didn't hear it clearly or maybe I just don't know the word. thanks.
Great version of your own song. I hope things are going a bit better in Hong Kong these days?😊 I subbed two years ago and just got a notification for your new song, so I'm just doing a tour again of your work..
Thanks for explaining the history and traditions of pantomime. It's not very common where I live (Australia) and it's always seemed so odd to me, so it was great to get an understanding of it. As for last performance pranks: I wonder if that's a general theatre/stage thing. Every time I've been involved in a musical or stage performance, we always plan something silly for the last night. Definitely no sausage references, though!
Thank you for such a detailed look at the history. It seems to be really hard to find specifics like this, most things just say it came from Comedia del Arte and leave it at that. I have been doing panto with my own drama group in London for over 10 years now and have to say I love it. Playing henchman this year. As to last night pranks. Well, we have done them in the past, but yes it does have to be stuff that doesn't affect the audience. We did one year when the dame opened a suitcase and then take stuff out of it, so we taped a rehearsal picture to the inside of it, where the audience couldn't see, to make him laugh. However, the attitude in the group now does seem to be that if it's funny enough for the last night then it's funny enough for every night, and I have to say I agree with that.
