Include pantos on your holiday to-do list

If holiday travels take you to Britain, indulge in vibrance of the pantomime

- Agencies

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. Throw 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 theatres big and small across the UK each winter. Formulaic but anarchic, family friendly but a little risqué, they are a holiday tradition that give many children their first exposure to live theatre—and adults a chance to cut loose.

Audiences happily shed their inhibitions—cheering, singing, hissing the villain, shouting "He's behind you!" to warn the hero.