Is that a royal panto parade? Oh yes it is!
PANTOMIME costumes worn as teenagers by the Queen and her sister Princess Margaret have gone on public display for the first time at Windsor Castle.
The intricate outfits were donned when they took to the stage in a wartime show called Old Mother Red Riding Boots.
The 18-year-old Princess Elizabeth wore a long-sleeved pink satin and lace dress to play Lady Christina Sherwood for the production in December 1944. She also put on a chintz shirt, trousers and sun hat for a seaside scene, in which Margaret, 14, wore a blue taffeta dress overlaid with cream-coloured lace and cream lace bloomers to play the Honourable Lucinda Fairfax.
The garments are being shown alongside previously exhibited outfits the princesses
‘Brought cheer and a little light relief’
wore a year earlier in Aladdin. Old Mother Red Riding Boots, written and produced by Hubert Tanner, headmaster of the nearby Royal Windsor School, combined elements of a number of different traditional pantomimes. It was performed three times, to audiences of between 300 and 600.
Caroline de Guitaut, curator of the displays, said: ‘It’s just a lovely thing to celebrate at this festive time of year and remembering the spirit in which these pantomimes were originally put together to bring cheer and a little bit of light relief to life in what was a very dark time.’ The costumes are on show in the castle’s Waterloo Chamber, where the pantomimes were performed, until January 31.