1. Work creatively, imaginatively, productively, ethically and responsibly within established guidelines, timeframes and resources on your negotiated practice as research investigation and enquiry.
2. Apply, develop and advance your creative and critical skills in the execution of the above.
3. Negotiate problems as they arise and offer creative and/or practical solutions to challenges encountered.
4. Reflect and critically evaluate your work and appraise and contextualise the efficacy of choices made and your overall creative achievement.

Practical Demonstration LO 1,2,3
Students will negotiate the areas of practice that they wish to research and explore. These will be agreed with the Academic Mentor and/or Module Leader and articulated in a learning agreement.

Viva-voce examination: informed and evidenced by your production journal and portfolio of work LO 4
The production journal and portfolio should be used to justify and substantiate your concepts and ideas discussed in the viva-voce. These will not be formally marked.

In this module you will be asked to work in your negotiated chosen area/s devising and creating new forms of inclusive pantomime practice, that respond to and celebrate contemporary multicultural society. Your work will be informed by contemporary industry debates and ethical concerns which will help prepare you for your final two modules.

You will continue your negotiated journey and determine the areas of practice you wish to explore, develop and action. Focusing on a particular area of pantomime practice, you will identify the skills, knowledges and expertise you wish to advance in your training and practical research. You will work with established industry professionals, including practitioners from Wilkes Academy, in practical workshops, seminars, rehearsals and masterclasses on your agreed areas. These may include interrogating existing narratives; stock character conventions; audience participation and direct address; slapstick, comic routines and topicality; music, orchestration and sound; movement and choreography; the use of magic, transformation and illusion; scenography and design; the genre’s use of innovative technology and digital media from a wide range of historical and contemporary contexts and viewpoints.

You will also interrogate the genre’s evolution. In particular, you will critically analyse the impact and dominance of inherited pantomime practice from the Victorian era that in its contemporary form subconsciously and consciously still manifests outmoded and discriminatory ideologies. You will be encouraged to appraise and reimagine racist, sexist, misogynistic and homophobic aspects of the genre that have become embedded in the form due to inertia, repetition and commerciality.

Focusing on a particular area of pantomime practice, you will identify the skills, knowledges and expertise you wish to advance in your training and practical research. You will explore these in practical workshops with Creative Industry practitioners and pantomime experts, including specialists from Wilkes Academy. You will generate new and innovative material to inform future pantomime practice and/or scholarship.

In this module your work will be supported and mentored by guest theatre practitioners, departmental and university staff, and where appropriate, other industry professionals including pantomime experts. You will also learn through engaging with and interacting with other students on the programme.

A key part of your learning will be to take ownership and responsibility for your work. You will be expected to take initiate and undertake individual and collaborative research (where appropriate): work safely, ethically and responsibility in rehearsals and workshops: receive and apply feedback: and reflect upon, analyse and articulate your creative achievement against the learning outcomes for the module.

Branagh, J. and Orton, K., 2011. Creating Pantomime. Ramsbury: The Crowood Press.
Harris, Paul. 2008. Pantomime Book: The Only Known Collection of Pantomime Jokes and Sketches in Captivity. London: Peter Owen Publishers.
Lipton, M., 2007. Celebrity versus Tradition: ‘Branding’ in Modern British Pantomime. New Theatre Quarterly, 23 (2), 136–149.
Mayer, David. 1974. “The Sexuality of Pantomime.” Theatre Quarterly 4 (3): 55–64.
Pickering, David. 1993. Encyclopedia of Pantomime. Andover: Gale Research International.
Sladen, Simon. 2020. ‘Wicked Queens of Pantoland’ in Edward, Mark and Farrier, Stephen. Drag Histories, Herstories and Herstories: Drag in a Changing Scene (Vol. 2). London: Bloomsbury.
Sladen, Simon. 2020.” That sort of fairy tale’s no use in the new Victorian age that’s coming”: The past as a metaphor for the present in Peter Nichols’s Poppy’. Popular Entertainment Studies, Vol. 11 (1-2), 46-65.

Tutorial and seminar space, with facilities for portfolio creation.
Presentation facilities for formal presentations.
University Library
IT facilities
Blackboard Virtual Learning Environment will support this module where relevant.
Online Resources including:
Drama online - https://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/v
BBC Box of Broadcasts - https://libguides.staffs.ac.uk/libraryresources

In addition to the above, students will be expected to attend theatre visits and access recorded performances on-line.