Beauty And The Beast, Theatre Royal, Nottingham

With life like 3D effects, a huge dragon that rises from the stage into the stalls, colourful costumes, jokes that will make you groan and songs that you know it must be pantomime time again.

The Nottingham panto this year at the Theatre Royal has all of this but importantly too, they have not based the production around one star act as some pantos tend to do.

From the TV show Benidorm is Nottingham born actress Sherrie Hewson who excels as Mrs Potts Temple-Savage, her comical character from the TV show crosses over to pantomime well.

Ben Richards who you might recall from Hollyoaks is debonair as Prince Sebastian but fearsome when he is The Beast.

The two stars who really make the panto special though are Ben Nickless as Benny: his style is like Yorkshire's Billy Pearce mixed with a touch of Joe Pasquale. His comic timing and impressions were some of the highlights of the show.

I lost count of how many costume changes Andrew Ryan went through as Dame Betty. His character like most of those on stage was highly believable. He must be one of the best Dames I have seen in panto.

Smooth talking and suave Danny Bayne as Trent Bridge brought a little high camp to the proceedings, whilst the producers have found a rising star in Naomi Slights as Belle. It was a pleasure to hear someone with a good singing voice.

Of course you have to appeal to the all ages with pantomime, so yes there was the jokes only the mums and dads would understand, but with a nod to new technology including a scene with the Amazon Echo device.

A good choice of recent songs such as One More Time by Ariana Grande, Symphony by Clean Bandit and Hold My Hand by Jess Glynne added a current feel to the production. They changed some of the lyrics to the songs to fit the storyline which worked well.

There is slapstick humour towards the end, with no one scene going on too long so as to hold any young minds attention.

One of the best pantomimes I have seen in many years. It has it all.

Beauty and the Beast
Theatre Royal, Nottingham
Runs until Sunday 14 January 2018
www.trch.co.uk
Telephone 0115 989 5555