If you're British you probably know that the UK's traditional Christmas theatre is Pantomime. It's a multi-million pound industry, most theatres which don't house long running shows will present one, most kids will have been taken to such a show and many grow up taking their own off-spring to a pantomime every Christmas too.
If you're not from the UK you'll be forgiven for finding the whole thing baffling. There's no mime involved, as foreigners often assume. Instead it's a staging of one of around 6 children's stories but presented using a host of conventions which have become traditional, the origins of which are lost back in the mists of time.
The most commonly found conventions are that there's a maternal figure played by a man in a dress. In Aladdin and Jack and the Beanstalk this figure is the hero's mum! In Dick Whittington it's the heroine's cook and in Cinderella her mean sisters are usually played by men. These characters are usually raucous and man-hungry.
All the scenery will be bright and colourful, in bigger theatres spectacularly so, and are based on Victorian scenery with a series of painted, two dimensional back-drops representing the many locations.
There will usually be, what we call, a "slop" scene in which the comic characters get really messy, and covered in what looks like custard or cream but is usually shaving foam.
All the performers, in brightly coloured costumes, will talk and sing directly to the audience encouraging them to shout back a series of traditional responses which British people soon learn from an early age. You're encouraged to shout booo at the villain and cheer the good guys.
Right at the end there's usually a singing competition in which those sitting to the right and left sides of the auditorium compete as to who can sing the loudest.
It all that sounds a little bizzare, it is! But it's also great fun and you'll get the hang of it very quickly allowing you to laugh at the terrible but funny jokes and enjoy the singing and dancing.
People of all ages can enjoy a pantomime. Kids love all the slap-stick comedy and seeing one of the stories they know coming to life; and there's always enough adult humour to keep grownups amused but presented in such a clever way that children won't pick up on it.
This Christmas there are pantomimes right actors London. Why not treat yourself and your friends and family to a traditionally British theatre experience in Hackney, Wimbledon, Richmond, Stratford, Hammersmith, Greenwich, Lewisham or at Wilton's Music Hall?
There are mini-pantomimes in the fringe too, including at The Kings Head, Southwark Playhouse and The Park Theatre and adult-only pantomimes, packed with filthy jokes about sex (usually gay sex) at the Leicester Square Theatre and the Above the Stag Theatre in Vauxhall.
When we think of writers who have multiple shows running in the West End at the same time we tend to think of Shakespeare, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Alan Aykbourn and Noel Coward but a much loved children's author is currently catching them up.