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by TheManInThePub 1857 days ago
> Double-entendres are as English as Big Ben.

Undoubtedly.

Its probably also worth pointing out to our American audience that the beauty of double entendres is that any "blue" meaning is clearly in the mind of those hearing them, nowhere else!

After all "Miss Shillings Orifice" is simply a carburettor part named after Miss Shilling. Any association with bodily orifices (and that one in particular) is in the mind of the listener who should hang their head in shame for having such a dirty mind :-) What *would* your mother think!
1 comments
alimw 1857 days ago
I would like to point out to the casual reader from elsewhere that the comments in this thread refer to a Britain of the past. A nation's sense of humour evolves rather quickly.
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toyg 1857 days ago
Britain is still very much like this, outside London.
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TheManInThePub 1857 days ago
Last I checked, pantomimes show no sign of becoming unpopular in Britain :-)
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alimw 1857 days ago
You got me looking for pantomime statistics in recent years :) Perhaps they're hard to find or perhaps I didn't try very hard, but the best I could come up with was this from 2013:

> Terri Paddock, Managing and Editorial Director of WhatsOnStage, commented: "In general, we're seeing fewer pantomimes mounted in recent years. As of today, we're listing 125 pantomimes in our nationwide database for this Christmas as compared with a peak in 1996 of 244.

https://www.whatsonstage.com/england-theatre/news/panto-stat...

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iso1631 1856 days ago
My kid's primary school takes them every year (covid excepted) to a panto, and we as a family go to our local am-dram panto. Annecdotaly that village panto has half a dozen shows and is always packed.

The former is a professional show - although 125 just for professional seems low given that I know of at least 3 professional pantos within 10 miles of my house which covers a population of about 100k population

Professional UK panto income increased 30% from 2012 to 2016 with about 3 million people watching a professional one each year - about 1 in 20 people.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:...

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