Pantomime

  They don’t have pantomime in the States. Oh no, they don’t – not like in Britain anyway, though there are cultural pockets here and there. Sure they have a word pronounced and spelt as pantomime, but it has a rather different meaning. Picture my wife Alison and me on an American cruise ship off the coast of beautiful Alaska, partaking of a pre-dinner aperitif and talking to a very nice couple from Twenty-Nine Palms, California whom we’d just met. We tell them that we are busy learning our lines for the upcoming pantomime. A glazed look appears, rather as if they think we’ve been too long at seas. “Lines?” they ask. “In pantomime?” Although it’s not (quite) universal in the USA, the words “Pantomime” and “Mime” are interchangeable. You don’t have lines in pantomimes because they’re silent, right? “Wrong,” I Say. “Let me explain…” There are days when getting … Read more