ABSTRACT
In 1861 James Robinson Planche proclaimed his aim as a dramatist was ‘to lay the foundations of an Aristophanic drama through a new form – extravaganza. The high point of extravaganza was reached perhaps at the Lyceum in 1849, with The Island of Jewels which climaxed with the leaves of a huge palm tree opening to discover six skimpily clothed fairies, each holding up a coronet of jewels. Such dramas were burlesques, not extravaganzas, since they contained a certain theatrical subversiveness, whereas extravaganza was more fantastical. Burlesque, extravaganza and pantomime shared a penchant for cross-dressing. But the fairy tale, which Planche had already shown how to stage in his popular extravaganzas, was now moving into the Victorian middle class nursery. Similarly, pantomime poached the enchanted fairylands of the extravaganzas. Pantomimes followed burlesque and extravaganza in presenting cross-dressed female actors. A later series of burlesques for John Baldwin Buckstone made fun of the contemporary theatre.
