Cinderella (Basildon – panto)

Poor Cinderella (Rosie Needham, making her professional début) has been saddled with Nigella (Luke Coldham) and Farage (Tom Capper). Where, you might ask, is their mother, Baron Hardup's second wife? Apparently she was eaten by a bear when on honeymoon (a koala bear, not a grizzly).

Fortunately support for the unhappy heroine comes from her distinctly Essex Fairy Godmother Sophie Ladds) and general factotum Buttons (Simon Fielding). Emma Woods and Fielding have created some energetic choreography for which musical director Kevin Oliver Jones provides some catchy accompaniment.

Luke Kelly is Prince Charming, so bored with the standard princesses on offer as his bride; Joe Sleight's Dandini happily goes along with the rebellion. As with Needham, they hold the audience's attention throughout their numbers.

Coldham and Capper make an impact from their first entrance in a car with the apt registration 2UGLY, wearing complementary fruit (those melons!) and vegetable outfits which get even more outrageous as the show goes on. These are two of the nastiest lumps of malice you're likely to encounter this Christmas.

The transformation scenes work very well and Cinderella is taken to the ball in a coach drawn by Pegasus himself. Fielding's Buttons evokes the audience's sympathy; you sense a real affection between him and Cinderella with the first-act kitchen scene making its proper impact.

Plot twists aside, the familiar panto gags and sequences make their due appearance, including the kitchen make-believe ball and the ever-lasting stocking and wooden leg in the slipper trial. It all looks good and flows easily.

Cinderella runs at the Towngate Theatre, Basildon until 4 January.