Pantomime began in Malta as entertainment for British servicemen and their families, but it has evolved into a uniquely local tradition. Philip Leone-Ganado explores how Maltese companies are making and remaking the popular genre.

Alan Montanaro and others have introduced a set of Maltese quirks to the panto, which was brought to Malta by the British early last century. The above picture is taken from Scrooge, a 2010 MADC production. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

For many families, a trip to the pantomime is an unmissable Christmas tradition. In English or Maltese, the shows are the most loved and frequented plays on the island and the lifeblood of the companies producing them.

Yet Maltese panto is something of an anomaly. Outside the UK, only a handful of former colonies still partake in this originally British tradition and, while the shows take on a local flavour wherever they are produced, Malta is the only country to stage panto in a language other than English.

Moreover, even when performed in English, any audience member accustomed to panto in the UK will quickly recognise that the Maltese take on the genre is something quite different.

The first recorded Christmas pantomime in Malta, The Babes in the Wood, was performed in 1904 at the Naval Church Institute in Senglea, followed a year later by Dick Whittington and his Cat, staged by the Malta Amateur Dramatic Society (a forerunner of the MADC).

By 1910, according to theatre historian Paul Xuereb, the MADC panto Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp was given “a strong Maltese flavour”, including two police officers called Ħam-Run and Slie-Ma.

For decades, panto was exclusively written and performed by British residents and many established Maltese actors and writers today recall watching performances by the RAF company, The Arial Players, in the late 1960s and 1970s.

According to Vicki-Ann Cremona, a theatre researcher and head of the School of Performing Arts at the University of Malta, it was around this time that Maltese actors first began joining the panto cast, and later still that they began writing the scripts themselves.

“The writers began inserting more and more Maltese humour and references; this wasn’t the British referencing the Maltese with a colonial gaze, it was the Maltese making fun of themselves and the British,” Prof. Cremona said.

“The Maltese panto retained certain conventions which are typically English, but beyond that, the actual content and humour became more and more Maltese. We respected the form but we have taken the content elsewhere.”

Core elements remained in place as Maltese companies, the MADC first among them, took on the mantle: there is a dame (always played by a man) and a baddie, whom the audience is expected to interact with by booing or yell out “he’s behind you”. There is music with rewritten song lyrics, risqué jokes and sweets handed out to the children.

But new elements snuck in too: localised references, more political jokes and a repertoire that has dropped British mainstays such as Dick Whittington and Mother Goose in favour of, in recent years, Scrooge and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, alongside more standard fairy tale stories.

Everyone brings something new to it, so we’re all building on each other

And some of the traditional features found themselves reworked, as personified in the uniquely Maltese character of the Dame created and performed for many years by Alan Montanaro, whose name has become synonymous with panto.

Mr Montanaro said his character – with her distinctive accent, crude Maltese-to-English translations and catchphrases like “un-believe-it” – was a departure from the British tradition, but one that played to his own strengths as an actor.

When the MADC moved from its home at the Manoel Theatre to the MFCC in Ta’ Qali, the change in venue pushed the character even further away from its roots and into something like a drag queen persona, with ever more extravagant costumes and an even more brash stage presence.

This character became a new and beloved tradition in its own right, such that Mr Montanaro says audiences have been disappointed when he has tried to mix it up, with a dame parodying pepé stereotypes, for example.

Similarly, ideas Mr Montanaro included in scripts he has written, such as a scene parodying the year’s Eurovision entry, could only really exist in Malta. He is planning a return the year after next with a new Aladdin script, and has several ideas already stored for the event.

Malcolm Galea, who wrote and stars as dame in this year’s Masquerade panto Alice in Wonderland at the Manoel Theatre, believes the set of Maltese quirks Mr Montanaro and others introduced have been picked up, tweaked and added to by other writers and performers since.

“People who work on panto in Malta tend to work on quite a few and everyone brings something new to it, so we’re all building on each other,” he said.

Mr Galea has himself not been shy of breaking with tradition: previous shows he has written have introduced elements like werewolves and vampires into old fairy tales or done away with the typical battle-of-the-sexes sing-along.

A panto poster from the early 1980s.

He has found that audience members are more than ready to embrace changes to the old formula, so long as they are not too sudden or too radical.

“People were raised watching panto and so they bring their kids to watch it out of a feeling of tradition,” he said. “We have to stay abreast of current trends and humour, but our job as the current panto makers is to make sure that once they come, they won’t think twice about coming again next year.”

The biggest change panto has undergone in Malta, of course, is language. Pawlu Testa, producer of Kumpanija Teatru Rjal’s Frowżinn at the Catholic Institute in Floriana, said the Maltese-language pantos his company has produced for 17 years opened the genre up to a new audience, which would not typically attend theatre productions in English.

People expect the dame and the baddie, but they also expect the political jokes

For Mr Testa, balancing tradition with innovation is key. While the language has changed, the structure of the panto is still largely the same as its English-language counterparts.

“People expect the dame and the baddie, but they also expect the political jokes and, as time has gone on, we’ve become known for incorporating technology and more elaborate scenery as well,” he said.

In the face of these changes, the concept of a ‘traditional panto’ can itself be a selling point. MADC chairman Martin Azzopardi said this year’s Cinderella at the MFCC will be reinstating some ideas which have come and gone with time, including a principal boy played by a girl and a more classic conception of the dame.

But the company has been far from immune to change over the years. In the move from Valletta to Ta’ Qali, where the company builds its stage anew every year, the MADC has led yet another shift in panto form, with increasingly elaborate staging and spectacular effects.

Where many British pantos opt for a deliberately low-budget aesthetic, the Maltese take is becoming more reminiscent of big musical productions.

“The MFCC makes it easier to do things on a grander scale because we create the stage and the theatre space ourselves every year,” Mr Azzopardi said. “These days people want to see the spectacle we can create. The element of surprise has become quite an attraction.”

For the MADC, the 18,000 or so audience members the panto is expected to draw over its 16-show run – practically unheard of for any show other than panto – will provide the funds for every other production this season.

Other companies report similar results, and Mr Azzopardi’s assessment of the genre’s enduring popularity echoes with that of other people involved: “It’s a family event that adults and children can both enjoy. Christmas is a time for family, and panto is a way of coming together.”