With no televisions and no cinema, Liverpool audiences of the late 19^th Century flocked to the theatre. Liverpool possessed no less than 26 theatres and 38 music halls. The main theatres towards the end of the century were the Prince Of Wales in Clayton Square (opened 1861) the Shakespeare Theatre off London Road (opened 1866) and the Royal Court Theatre.

The site of the Royal Court had been a theatre for many years. As Cookes Royal Amphitheatre of Arts, up to 4,000 people would gather to attend plays, operas, concerts and circus. In 1881 as ownership of the theatre changed, it was rebuilt and renamed The Royal Court Theatre. Along with the three other theatres it presented an annual pantomime.

The Victorian pantomime was not only the template for today’s show, but very much a vehicle for music hall stars. Combining a mixture of music hall, comic opera and a large chunk of spectacle, the pantomime appealed to all levels of society. The first Royal Court Pantomime, or “annual” as it was known, was Babes In The Wood. It is not clear whether this was a success or not, but no further pantomime was produced at the Court for fourteen years, until 1895 with the presentation of Dick Whittington.

Three years later, Arthur Lawrence was appointed the theatre manager. Starting with Aladdin, it was Lawrence who put the Royal Court firmly in the centre of the panto map. The biggest music hall stars of the day would appear in the Court’s “annual”. George Robey, Harry Lauder, Little  Tich, the Three Sisters Levey and the Poluski Brothers all helped to make the Royal Court’s pantomime among the most famous in Britain. With the ownership of the theatre passing to Howard & Wyndhams Ltd at the turn of the century, the growth of pantomime blossomed.

Arthur Lawrence quoted in The Liverpudlian, November 1938:

“In 1906, in Aladdin, I had Hetty King and Happy Fanny Fields, together with Malcolm Scott and Harry Tate-some combination. I produced at the Court, in twenty-six years, twenty pantomimes. The 1906 panto was the biggest success. We averaged takings of just under £2,000 a week, and that in a theatre supposed to hold no more than about £275 at full capacity. Our pantomimes would run elsewhere for about five years, so Liverpool was thus a  pantomime manufacturing centre.  

They were all made here- scenery, dresses, jokes and music, and all. I may mention, also, that we had a stage unsurpassed for its equipment. Every kind of trap ever known on a stage was in being”

That pantomime Aladdin was repeated, with almost the same cast, at the Adelphi Theatre in London the following year. “A chorus of over 100 Voices” boasted the posters. A magazine was produced in Liverpool solely devoted to pantomimes.

By the 1920’s the death of Music Hall was under way, and the Royal Court panto mirrored its decline. Gone were the stars with their own personal songs to be replaced by “free” songs that anyone could sing. The Royal Court panto ended, replaced each Christmas by musical comedy, or a visit by the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company.

In 1933 the Royal Court Theatre was destroyed by fire. Eventually rebuilt, in the new “Art Deco” style. It reopened in 1938 and its first Panto was Humpty Dumpty, starring Gene Gerrard, Bobbie Comber, the Tiller Girls, and a cast “of Over 80”. The consecutive run of pantomime was not to be, With another World War the  spectacle of pantomime found itself replaced with the comedy The Eric Maschwitz revue, featuring a young Charles Hawtrey (of later Carry On Fame) performing female impersonations. The following year Vivienne Leigh appeared in  The Doctor’s Dilemma.

It was not until 1943, with the arrival of A. Stewart Cruickshank as managing director that pantomime returned, again starting with Babes In The Wood. By the 1960’s television comedians and pop stars became the new stars of panto. In 1956, young heart throb Dickie Valentine took on the role of Aladdin. By the end of the fifties, facing stiff competition and dwindling audiences, the Royal Court Pantomime began a slow lingering death. In the Sixties occasional pantomimes (always Cinderella) were interspersed by Christmas shows by Ken Dodd, Dora Bryan, Frankie Vaughan, the Bachelors and the Black & White Minstrels.

Howard & Wyndham’s financial problems increased, and the Royal Court was offered to the City Council to purchase. They refused. An attempt to open the Court as a Bingo Hall in 1968 was abandoned after eight months. There was no Christmas show after Aladdin in 1975. An attempt to revive panto in 1981 with Snow White was not successful, and pantomimes were no longer performed at the Royal Court.

In 1997 the Neptune Theatre in Liverpool presented Aladdin at the Court. Following on their success at the Neptune the previous year with Sonia in Dick Whittington, they presented Aladdin starring Julie Goodyear as Mrs. Twankey, and Danny McCall as Aladdin. Since then the Royal Court pantomimes have been Cinderella (1998), Babes in The Wood (1999), Aladdin (2000) and Dick Whittington (2001).

We would like to thank Robert Bertram, of the Neptune Theatre for the information, and programme notes from the Neptune Theatre’s Aladdin at the Royal Court.