Henry Marshall’s Gag Book: Pantomime Routines for Actors in Twentieth Century Repertory Theatre

Partridge in a Pear Tree parody. Row of comics and others behind washing machines. The first day of Christmas my true love sent to me etc. The first day of Christmas I saw on TV … so many washing machines, so many drip drip shirts (Dame washing them) two rubber gloves, and a clock that makes the tea. Include one packet of Daz. Each are produced as mentioned. Eventually porter comes on with trolley of packets. (Get actual number to write parody from)

(Marshall 1950s routine in Abbott, Panto 306)

Sevenoaks’s version of the ‘12 Days of Christmas’ which used Chinese takeaway menu items instead of the now usual ‘bra that was made to hold three’ and ‘five toilet rolls’, was also a welcome deviation …

(Sladen)

The first extract above is from a gag book started in the early 1940s by prolific pantomime author Henry Marshall and now to be found in the Bristol Theatre Collection. The second extract is from an online pantomime review in 2013 by Simon Sladen, British Theatre Guide pantomime critic. This paper will seek to examine Marshall’s gag book in order to examine some of the persisting tropes of pantomime performance, as well as considering some of the more specific features of mid-twentieth century repertory theatre pantomime as written by Marshall for Salisbury Playhouse for thirty-one years from 1955 to 1985. The distinctive feature of this book of gags and routines is that it was written for inexperienced performers at the beginning of their careers, and therefore contains a level of detail not often found in similar collections.

The persistence of the twelve days of Christmas routine over more than fifty years is an indication not only of the force of tradition within pantomime dramaturgy, but also of the important role of learned and passed-on routines within the genre. When Sladen remarks on the ubiquity of the routine in the 2012 season he identifies it as one of the many long-lasting set-pieces still to be seen in pantomime. Marshall’s version of the routine requires a prominent role for Daz soap powder rather than items from a Chinese restaurant, perhaps in return for supplies for the wardrobe, but in all essentials the routine is unchanged. He also includes a gag showing that the bra with the extra cup is not new either: “This is my Brooke Bond Tea Bra. Two cups, two lumps and one for the pot” (Abbott, Panto 227).

Henry Marshall’s pantomime gag book

When Henry Marshall’s gag book was begun in the 1940s, he was writing for commercial theatres such as the Alexandra at Birmingham, with its strong pantomime tradition under Derek Salberg, and the Grand Theatre Wolverhampton, where Marshall’s brother Oliver Gordon would later stage many productions. It was at the Theatre Royal Windsor, however, that the two brothers developed many of the routines that would later feature for thirty years in the very popular pantomimes at the Salisbury Playhouse under the management of Reggie Salberg, another member of an eminent theatrical dynasty (Abbott, Panto 21-27). It was presumably this gag book, or an earlier version of it, to which the Manager of the Theatre Royal Windsor was referring when he wrote that Marshall “had an extensive collection of [pantomime routines] in all their many variations. We let him know the kind of thing we wanted for any given spot and he provided it” (Counsell 172).

The gag book is now at the Theatre Collection of the University of Bristol as a result of the generosity of Henry’s daughter, Emma Battcock, who donated a selection of her father’s papers, scripts and other memorabilia in 2008 to form the Henry Marshall Collection. The collection is currently to be found in five boxes and has not yet been classified beyond an accession number (2008/0009). The gag book, however, has now been transcribed and published (Abbott Panto), and it is the purpose of this article to further analyse this artefact of theatrical history and to consider its value as illuminating pantomime...