STAGE REVIEW: Cinderella - at the Festival Theatre, Malvern, Thursday, December 14, 2017 to Saturday, January 30, 2018.

JUST like Santa on Christmas Eve, you can rely on the Festival’s pantomime to deliver plenty of delightful goodies - but that’s only if you have been good.

And it looked as if there were plenty who have been well behaved over the past 12 months with a full house on opening night and advanced ticket sales setting the theatre well on the way to possible record-breaking attendance figures.

More importantly these goodies aren’t meant to be just for the little ones either, as pantos are intended to be a feast of fun for all the family - young or old.

It’s not far off the mark either, just a couple of concerns, but it’s a near perfect heady mix, with just enough innuendo sprinkled among the ingredients for parents, and grandparents too, to observe each other’s wry, if not mischievous smiles.

Pantos always need a spot of magic dust to spark all the fun and Cinderella is ignited by a whole bucket-load!

No one did it better than two wonderfully over-the-top Ugly Sisters - David Ball, who directs the show, and Paul Lawrence Thomas, who are the Hardup sisters, Daisy and Lily. Excellent rapport with each other in their colourful and crazy clothing, and they knew how to play their audience for laughs.

Mark James worked his socks off as a Buttons with bounce. A bundle of energy and fun, while Gemma Naylor’s more subdued Cinderella is the perfect foil. She didn’t just sparkle at Prince Charming’s Palace Ball, but throughout and she’s got a good voice to boot!

Alison Hammond’s frothy Fairy Godmother hits the spot too. She was hugely popular on ITV's This Morning and with her outrageous sense of fun it's not hard to see why.

Paul Hawkyard also impressed with all the exasperation of a man who has lost the battle of wills with his two stepdaughters, Daisy and Lily, and there was plenty to admire from the villagers’ choreographic routines along with the youngsters from the local Celia Hall Dance Centre.

As for those concerns one is the need for a younger Prince Charming. It seems to have become a prevalent panto factor in recent years that our princes have matured a touch too much. Time, perhaps, to take to Facebook to petition for a ‘Princely age limit’!

However, that should’t detract from Ben Harlow’s ‘charming’ performance or that of his sidekick-cum-valet Dandini. Some engaging routines and fine duets.

Elsewhere perhaps a few more risks might have been taken with the script, with no requirement to take a turn into smutty street. This Cinders story is good clean family fun but it could have taken the chance to take a risk with the risqueness of the humour that would have travelled above the heads of the younger elements but appealed to more experienced minds.

Nevertheless this is another production that helps add to the Festival’s reputation for providing first class festive fun.