Joe McElderry of X Factor fame makes his panto debut in this boisterous production of Cinderella and what a sweet Prince Charming he is. As on TV, McElderry inspires the feeling that he's an inherently good person and we all go off with a sense that Cinders really is going to live happily ever after in the arms of such a nice chap. He has a number of beautifully sung ballads and if he and Victoria Farley's polished Cinderella seem a little more like friends than lovers that's not something that bothers their enthusiastic audience.

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Shane Richie Jnr is brilliant as a very wry Buttons. For a character usually played for buffoonish laughs, Richie Jnr instead goes for the world weary air of a vaudevillian music hall star. It's an ingenious move and he's genuinely hilarious. Nick Barclay and Howard Gossington are a suitably gruesome paring as the ugly sisters and Jenny-Ann Topham relishes the role of wicked stepmother with dastardly panache. David McMullan is an amusingly officious and very dapper Dandini.

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The appearance of real ponies drawing Cinderella's coach almost proves too much for this raucous audience to bear and her transformation is masterfully handled to appear almost magical.