More about us

The Pantaloons draw from a wide variety of popular theatre traditions, from commedia dell'arte and pantomime to stand-up comedy and silent movies, to bring what we consider to be a vital sense of "play" back to Shakespearean performance. We specialise in open-air, interactive performances, in a bid to recapture an aspect of Shakespeare's drama which the modern naturalistic theatre has lost: the riotous energy of the clown. Hamlet tells us that the clowns in Shakespeare's day spoke "more than is set down for them", and we have found that tapping into this rich vein of anarchic humour can have a strangely moving and uplifting effect.

Crucially, it also reminds us - as Shakespeare constantly does himself - that we are all simply participants in a game of make-believe. In our theatre, your imagination is just as important as ours. We ask you to become co-creators of the play-world with us; or as Shakespeare put it in the prologue to Henry V, to "piece out our imperfections with your thoughts."

Formed at the University of Kent in 2004, we performed an all-male commedia dell'arte-influenced As You Like It, going on to tour with The Winter's Tale in 2005, both Romeo and Juliet and Cymbeline in 2006, A Midsummer Night's Dream in 2007, The Taming of the Shrew in 2008 and Twelfth Night and Romeo & Juliet in 2009.

Our mission statement:
"The Pantaloons are a company dedicated to making theatre which is accessible yet intelligent, taking inspiration from an eclectic mix of popular forms and re-inventing these to produce imaginative and innovative work. Our style is self-aware and playful, with one foot constantly in the world of the here-and-now while the other remains within the world of illusion. Our ethos is one of collaboration, both with our audiences and within the group itself. We maintain an emphasis on physicality and on audience interaction, and our aim is always to produce performance which is experimental, eye-catching, moving and fun."