It’s such a pleasure to welcome Alina Fields to the Blue Rose Writing Room Today and she’s talking pantomimes!
Welcome Alina!
Thanks so much Collette for letting me reach out to readers on your amazing website!
My novella, Rosalyn’s Ring, is set in a country estate in Regency England on Christmas Eve. Regency Christmas celebrations might have lacked the extravagance of current day festivities, but Christmas revelers would have observed one tradition that predates the Regency era and carries through to this day: the Christmas pantomime.
Historian Mark Connelly, author of Christmas: A History, says that “The pantomime has come to be regarded as a central part of the English Christmas, seen as a genuine part of the scenery on the stage of the national character.”
As an American who has never had the opportunity to celebrate Christmas in Britain, I find it fascinating that the pantomimes were not religious reenactments of the nativity of Jesus—they were more The Carol Burnett Show than The Glory of Christmas.
English Christmas pantomimes had their roots in the Harlequinade, the slapstick, comedic plays with stock characters presented by traveling players. The Victoria and Albert Museum website describes the Harlequinade:
The story of the Harlequinade had the same basic format; a chase scene where the two lovers, Harlequin and Columbine, are kept apart by the girl’s father, Pantaloon, whose servants play tricks on him. In the chase the two lovers are pursued by her father and his servant, Clown.
These early pantomimes were mimed. Speaking roles became more and more prevalent from the late 1750s onward.
In spite of the comedic nature of pantomimes, they often dealt with historical themes and expressed a sense of patriotism or nationalism. Even in stories about fictional or fairy tale characters, patriotic lessons were embedded.
In 1756, Harlequin’s Invasion, or A Christmas Gambol was performed at Drury Lane and included a tribute to General Wolfe, who had just won the Battle of Quebec. In 1813, The Corsican Fairy; or, Britannia’s Triumph, made fun of—who else?—Napoleon.
Aladdin and Jack in the Beanstalk, also known as Jack the Giant Killer (with a political subtext related to King Arthur and fears of Ireland) starred in Victorian era shows, and even more recently, in twenty-first century Christmas pantomimes. You can view these modern-day versions of Aladdin and Jack in the Beanstalk on YouTube.
Sadly, when the heroine of Rosalyn’s Ring arrives at an isolated estate on a cold snowy Christmas Eve, there are no prospects of a Christmas pantomime, or even a Christmas pudding. She does, however, find love, and isn’t that the best Christmas gift of all!
Blurb from Rosalyn’s Ring
Intent on liberating the young wife with the money she has scraped together, Rosalyn braves a precarious Christmas Eve coach ride in the company of a mysterious nobleman. She soon finds she is not the only determined buyer attending the sale. Her rakish opponent not only succeeds in thwarting her purchase; he reveals himself as the man who took everything that should have been hers. Everything, that is, but her father’s ring, which she manages to recover before being tossed out of the inn into the snowy night.
The newly anointed Viscount Cathmore has accepted there is no way to avoid living his father’s dream of accession to a social class he disdains, but he has drawn the line at marrying a blue-blooded miss. Then he meets Rosalyn, a provoking beauty with an upper crust manner, a larcenous streak, and enough secrets to rouse even his jaded heart, including the truth of her identity—she is the woman whose home and inheritance he has usurped. But more mysteries swirl around Rosalyn’s lost inheritance, and Cathmore is just the man to help her uncover the truth.
Rosalyn’s Ring is available from Soul Mate Publishing on Amazon.com.
Alina K. Field earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and German literature, but she found her true passion in reading and writing romance. Though her roots are in the Midwest, after six very, very, very cold years in Chicago, she moved to Southern California and hasn’t looked back. She shares a midcentury home with her husband and a blue-eyed cat who conned his way in for dinner one day and decided the food was too good to leave. Visit her at:
