"Panto" is the short, friendly, everyday word for "pantomime" — and in British English pantomime means one very particular thing: a funny musical play for families, put on in theatres around Christmas. It takes an old fairy tale (Cinderella, Aladdin, Jack and the Beanstalk), fills it with jokes, songs, and jokes for the adults that go over the children's heads, and breaks all the usual rules of theatre. An older woman character is played by a man in a huge dress. The hero boy is often played by a young woman. The actors talk straight to the audience, and the audience shouts back — "He's behind you!" and "Oh no it isn't!" are lines everybody in Britain knows. Going to the panto is a childhood thing, like a school trip or a family outing in December. Two things to notice. First, "panto" is casual: you say it to friends, you see it in newspaper headlines, you would probably write "pantomime" in a formal programme. Second, this British meaning is not what "pantomime" means in most other places, where it suggests silent acting with the hands and face — mime. A panto is the loud opposite of silent. The word is also used loosely, and a bit rudely, for a public argument or a political mess that everybody can see is fake and performed: "the whole thing was a panto."