In the last three years of his active career as composer to the Haymarket Theatre, Samuel Arnold wrote the music for three innovative pantomimes which reveal the influence of early Romanticism, the first being Obi, or Three Finger’d Jack (1800). In all these the story was mimed by actors, to continuous orchestral music with occasional vocal numbers interspersed. In addition, each was set in an exotic locale and included supernatural events, spectacular effects, processions, combat and rescue. Th...