Theatre Royal Drury Lane and Victorian Pantomime

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane was one of London’s largest and most prestigious commercial theatres. Its Christmas pantomimes combined familiar fairy tales with elaborate scenery, music, dance, topical humour and extensive costume work designed for mass audiences.

Behind the spectacle stood a large workforce of designers, dressmakers, stagehands and performers whose labour was often precarious. The theatre district also brought respectable entertainment into close proximity with poverty, prostitution and criminal exploitation.

A Lady in Disguise places its heroine in Drury Lane’s costume department during the 1883 Cinderella pantomime, using theatrical transformation both as a profession and as a practical means of investigation.