Traditionally performed at Christmas, with family audiences, British pantomime is now a popular form of theatre, incorporating song, dance, buffoonery, slapstick, in-jokes, audience participation, and mild innuendo.
"Panto" story lines and scripts typically make no reference to Christmas, and are almost always based on traditional children's stories, including several written or popularized by the French pioneer of the fairy tale genre, Charles Perrault, as well as others based on the English tales collected by Joseph Jacobs.
Source: http://britishplayers.org/aboutpantomime.html