Panto, and why Petrova & Tania are the best

The Whicharts by Noel Streatfeild

(& Ballet Shoes)

published 1931

 

[excerpts] Tania was the only member of the family working in pantomime that Christmas. For the other two [sisters], Christmas was only marked by a few extra matinees. This made her dislike her labours even more than usual. The suburban theatre at which she appeared took the best part of an hour to reach, her performances started earlier than in the West End; this meant that she started drearily off to work, leaving her sisters seated over the fire, conscious that they needn’t stir themselves for another hour at least…

 

She was ballet and chorus this year. She was a glorified member of the chorus, as the chief feature of the pantomime, which was Aladdin, was the jewel ballet in the cave scene, with Madame’s pupils as various precious stones. Tania was the ruby. She only appeared for a few moments on her toes, dressed in a tunic of crimson spangles, but the position of solo dancer gave her various privileges.

 

comments: I feel that most years among the Christmas entries there should be one about the great British tradition of the pantomime – click here for last year’s entry, with links to explanatory posts.

In 2025 I went into the history of The Whicharts, that predecessor of the blog favourite, Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes, with more great theatrical pictures.

Tania is, as anyone could guess, the equivalent character to Petrova – the sister who has little stage talent, and whose interests lie elsewhere. Though it must be said that in this version, Maimie is very different from the goody-goody great actress Pauline. I enjoyed her telling the grownups ‘Oh don’t fuss. You put me on the stage when I was 11, so it’s too late to keep me in cotton wool.’ And Tania thinks that Maimie ‘hadn’t any special gift, unless making men like you was a gift.’

Tania gets low-rent jobs – it’s all quite Wintle’s Wonders - or in one awful section has to understudy Daisy/Posy the superstar dancer. In a previous year, Tania’s panto engagement had been in the West End: she said then “Thank goodness! No trailing out into tiger country, 20 minutes door to door. That’s the job for this child!” I was very taken with the phrase ‘tiger country’, and will endeavour to drop it into conversation.

[Does everyone else know this? ‘Tiger country’ is A place, either real or figurative, where there is a perceived threat or danger. Originated in Australia to mean remote and inaccessible parts of a country. The phrase had a moment in the 1930s, and now has come back in relation to tiger economies]

The second pictures, from NYPL, show the George Balanchine ballet Jewels – this young woman, Colleen Neary, played the Ruby. This was in 1975, so 50 years after the panto in the book: and young Tania would never have dreamt of appearing in a ‘proper’ ballet. But I wanted something for her that took her seriously.

The final lines of Ballet Shoes are:

‘I wonder’—Petrova looked up—‘if other girls had to be one of us, which of us they’d choose to be?’

Well for me it would always have been Petrova/Tania so I’m giving her a nice red costume. At last Christmas’s stage show of Ballet Shoes (at the National Theatre in London, and it's on again now too), Petrova flew: she swung across the auditorium, high high up: it was an astonishing, spectacular moment, partly because of the extraordinary stage effect, but partly because the makers of the show had given Petrova what she most wanted. I applauded wildly.

Aladdin poster from the UK National Archives

Line of dancers from the State Library of Queensland.