This original analysis of contemporary British pantomime addresses the question of how pantomime creates a unique interactive relationship with, and potentially transformative experience for, its audiences. This is an accessible and valuable text that encourages readers to review their assumptions about pantomime and reconsider its importance as a popular theatre form.

British pantomime draws audiences into the story, an engagement with the hero, and an empathetic attachment to the success of the quest. Attention is held by the familiarity of the event, and the comedians draw the audience into a relationship of complicity as they unite to create the unique experience of the live interactive performance. At other times the audience is diverted by the artifice of dance, the illusion of transformation and the surreal playfulness of physical and verbal comedy. The trick of pantomime is to maintain an effective balance between the intellectual appreciation of artifice, the chaotic complicity of interactivity, and the emotional engagement of story-telling.