Author: Lawrence

I teach Film Studies at King's College London. I'm gonna be posting mainly about film-going in Britain in the early C20th, drawing on my own research activities. Previously I've written on British Cinema and Middlebrow Culture in the Interwar Years (University of Exeter Press, 2009), The Great War and Popular British Cinema in the 1920s (Palgrave, 2015) and Silent Cinema: Before the Pictures Got Small (Wallflower, 2017)

Pantomime and Cinema: Gracie Fields as Dick Whittington in ‘The Show Goes On’ (1937)

By chance I was watching Gracie Fields in The Show Goes On (Basil Dean, 1937) last week, and was delighted to see that it opens with a sequence showing the final moments of a production of Dick Whittington in the heroine's local theatre in 'Hindlebury'... There aren’t any full length feature film versions of pantomimes … Continue reading Pantomime and Cinema: Gracie Fields as Dick Whittington in ‘The Show Goes On’ (1937) →

Pantomime and Television: ‘Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp’ (1966) at the BFI Southbank

‘…this is a splendid snapshot of a moment where old theatre traditions were under threat from the power of television’ BFI Programme Notes. I’ve always thought panto on television was a bit of a weird idea. Panto is such a quintessentially theatrical experience – what with the calling out from the audience, the getting up on stage, … Continue reading Pantomime and Television: ‘Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp’ (1966) at the BFI Southbank →

Pantomime – Review of Sleeping Beauty at the Watford Palace Theatre

For its pantomime this year, Watford Palace theatre has gone all glam rock. Fairy Fender (Thomas Fabian Parrish) is a guitar-playing, catsuit-wearing rock-god, who shows us a ‘good time’ by taking us on a time-travelling voyage with stops in 1957 (to buy a new guitar), 1439, 1457 and then into the future as he battles … Continue reading Pantomime – Review of Sleeping Beauty at the Watford Palace Theatre →

Pantomime – Review of Dick Whittington at the Hackney Empire

For my money, the pantomime at the Hackney Empire is the best in London. I’m not alone in that opinion. Ask any regular panto-goer and they will tell you the same. The Hackney Empire panto, written and directed by Susie McKenna since 1998, has ruled the London pantomime scene for almost two decades. While other … Continue reading Pantomime – Review of Dick Whittington at the Hackney Empire →

Indecent Assaults in the Cinema

Content warning: This blogpost contains detailed discussions of indecent assaults in cinemas against both women and children across the twentieth century, which some readers may find distressing. A few months ago I blogged about ‘assaults in the cinema’ based on reports in Kinematograph Weekly and local newspaper reports I’d found on the British Newspapers Online … Continue reading Indecent Assaults in the Cinema →