A pantomime dame is a traditional character in British Panto. It is a continuation of en travesti portrayal of female characters by male actors in drag.

One example is Widow Twankey in the British pantomime version of the Aladdin story. In Monty Python's Flying Circus (Episode 30 (http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/episode30.htm)) non-British viewers were puzzled by the nature-film sequence in which the Pantomine Princess Margaret, lurking in the undergrowth harpooned a silver breakfast tray that was scuttling down the woodland trail: "The unsuspecting breakfast glides ever closer to its doom..."