Photos

Many countries have festivals which involve drag - dressing up in the garb of the opposite sex. But the tradition of the pantomime dame is particular to the UK. Here is one of the ugly sisters from Cinderella being made up to be um... "beautiful". Workshop shows the finished effect if you're interested.

A Pantomime in the UK is NOT a dumb-show (as mime might suggest), rather it is a mixture of various traditions, including music-hall, Commedia dell'arte, and some of its own special traditions. Plenty of innuendo, slap-stick set-pieces and audience interaction. Much of this interaction is initiated by the dame - a larger than life character who is not actually meant to look too much like a woman - the aim is to look like a man in drag!

I admit to a little extra radial blurring here, but only a little. Most of this effect is due to zooming while shooting, the physical effect that the PS filter emulates. The blurring also helps hide the graininess of an ISO 1600 shot.