Omai is a 1785 pantomime

Pantomime

Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...

 written by John O'Keeffe with music by William Shield

William Shield

William Shield was an English composer, violinist and violist who was born in Swalwell near Gateshead, the son of William Shield and his wife, Mary, née Cash.-Life and musical career:...

. It depicts the voyage of Omai, a Tahitian royal, to marry Londina the fictional daughter of Britannia

Britannia

Britannia is an ancient term for Great Britain, and also a female personification of the island. The name is Latin, and derives from the Greek form Prettanike or Brettaniai, which originally designated a collection of islands with individual names, including Albion or Great Britain. However, by the...

. It was loosely inspired by the real visit of Omai

Omai

Mai , mistakenly known as Omai in Britain, was a young Ra'iatean man who became the second Pacific Islander to visit Europe, after Ahu-toru who was brought to Paris by Bougainville in 1768...

 to Europe in the 1770s and the final voyage of the explorer Captain James Cook leading up to his dramatic death in 1779

Death of Cook

Death of Cook is the name of several paintings depicting the 1779 death of British explorer and European discoverer of the Hawaiian Islands, Captain James Cook at Kealakekua Bay. Most of these paintings seem to go back to an original by John Cleveley the Younger, painted in 1784, although other...

. Its full name is Omai: or, a trip round the world

Production

The sets were designed by Philip James de Loutherbourg

Philip James de Loutherbourg

Philip James de Loutherbourg, also seen as Philippe-Jacques and Philipp Jakob and with the appellation the Younger was an English artist of German origin who became known for his elaborate set designs for London theatres.-Early life:He was born in Strasbourg, where his father, the representative...

 who took great care to try and make his depictions as authentic as possible by studying sketches made on all three of Cook's voyages and consulting with John Webber

John Webber

John Webber was an English artist best known for his images of early Alaska and Hawaii.Webber was born on 6 October 1751 in London, educated in Switzerland and studied painting at Paris....

 an artist who had sailed with Cook.

The play was released a year and a half after official Admiralty

Admiralty

The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...

 records of Cook’s final voyage were released and played a major part in the hero-isation of Cook. Although much of its material was intentionally whimsical and inaccurate, it helped shape Western views of the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

 and its inhabitants. It was first performed at Covent Garden Theatre in December 1785.

Synopsis

Omai, the heir to the throne of Tahiti, is due to marry Londina, the daughter of Britannia, which will symbolically join the two countries together. However Omai has a number of rivals, who wish to prevent the marriage and the union of the two countries. To escape them he and Londina embark on a voyage that takes them through various destinations visited by Cook including Kamchatka, Antarctica, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, Tonga

Tonga

Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...

 and Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

.