WATCH: A Brazilian view on the Wolverhampton pantomime

After all, it almost always has a woman played by a middle-aged man and quite often has a boy played by a nubile young woman as well.

There's near-constant breaking of what dramatic types called 'the fourth wall' – in other words, the actors keep stopping to talk to the audience – not to mention the call-and-response routines ("He's behind you!) and other traditions sewn into the fabric of British pantomime through years of repetition.

Yes, pantomime is an odd cove, without a doubt.

Imagine if you were an alien landing on Earth for the first time. What would you make of our culture, if you were seeing pantomime as a primary reflection of it?

Well, here at the Express & Star, we don't have any aliens on the payroll, although some of the chaps on the subs desk do make us wonder.

But we do, in our online department, have Luciano Palma da Silva Pereira. Luciano hails from Mato Grosso, Brazil and has not been in the Black Country very long at all. In fact, this is his first Christmas in the UK. So we thought we'd send him along, completely unprepared, to the Wolverhampton Grand to see a matinee performance of Peter Pan, and then report back with his findings, hopefully answering the age-old question: What would someone from South America think of the Chuckle Brothers?

So, Luciano, the first question is: do you have anything similar to Christmas pantomime in Brazil?

"No, it's not very famous, it's not part of our culture. We have things that come from Broadway like Shrek, Sister Act and Addams Family, but usually we don't go those kind of things. They're not specifically Christmas events either. It's different here in the UK, definitely."

Having been to one, would you ever go to another?

"Yeah, if it was a friend or my family, I'd take them to show them part of the British culture."

You're not just being nice here?

"No, I promise, I would go again."

Did you find it in any way confusing?

"I didn't find it confusing at all. Peter Pan is famous worldwide in films and books and cartoons so I got what was going on."

Did you understand the humour? Specifically the stuff that was a bit 'adult' in nature?

"Yes, yes, there was some of that in there, I definitely got some of the jokes I wasn't expecting. When I heard them I thought, 'wait a minute, this stuff is not for kids!' But then I saw the adults laughing and was like, 'yeah okay, I got this. I'm allowed to laugh'."

Were you aware of who the Chuckle Brothers are?

"They were totally new to me. I mean, I've vaguely heard of them. A few days before I went they came to the Express & Star office and I was with my teammates talking about a project. Then they saw the Chuckle Brothers and were like, 'Oh my God, the Chuckle Brothers are here! THE CHUCKLE BROTHERS!' I was like, 'Okay... Yay?' They had to try to explain what the Chuckle Brothers are. We have those kind of TV shows in Brazil though, children's TV shows that you still watch when you're an adult."

How are you finding your first Wolverhampton Christmas?

"The decorations here are a lot better because here it's cold, so you have to make it look more like Christmas. I have eaten lots of Christmas pudding and Christmas cake here, in Brazil we eat panettones."

So do you think Wolverhampton could benefit from an annual Rio-style carnival?

"Ha ha! I would recommend other celebrations instead of carnival, I'd like to keep carnival in Rio. We have Festa Junina in June which is all about fireworks and fire and dancing around fire, it's a very beautiful thing."

Sounds like a health and safety nightmare. So how would you sum up your first pantomime, Luciano?

"It's a very nice experience for any Brazilian here in the UK. Bring the family, bring the kids, it's worth it."