AustLit

Edward Litt Leman was an English writer and director best known for the pantomimes he produced at London's Drury Lane Theatre between 1852 and 1888. Blanchard is regarded as one of the major figures in developing the fairy-story element in pantomime. Through his works, the emphasis on the harlequinade also lessened, as dialogue (especially in the style of rhyming couplets) became more important. By the 1860s, the principal boy (a woman playing the young hero) and dame (a male comic playing the mother-type role) had also begun to emerge as the new pantomime tradition.

Blanchard's first pantomime libretto, Jack and the Beanstalk, was staged in London in 1844. A number of his works became popular in Australia during the nineteenth century, albeit with some changes to scenes, settings, and characters and the insertion of local hits and topicalities. Some of his pantomimes and burlesques were adapted by Australian authors; these include Harlequin and the House that Jack Built (1865) and Riquet with a Tuft (1872).