2021’s word of the year: ‘cis’

The newspapers came out on Christmas Day in the middle of the 19th century and listed in columns of small type all the pantomimes for the next day. Among them in 1856 was Paul Pry on Horseback, or, Harlequin and the Magic Horse-shoe, a ‘grand comic equestrian pantomime’. For it was at Astley’s, which presented all its entertainments on horseback.

Since Astley’s, like many theatres, had burnt down on several occasions, it was bold to include in this panto a ‘Fire Horse’ and a ‘Chariot of Fire’. That year it survived the risk.

Astley’s Theatre stood at the south end of Westminster Bridge, opposite today’s modern part of St Thomas’ Hospital. It had stalls and three tiers of galleries round a circus ring 43ft in diameter (for the galloping horses), with a proscenium arch at one end with a raised stage. Pablo Fanque, the black rope-dancer and equestrian mentioned in Sgt.