Saturday night at the Old Vic, and as Sir Ian McKellen reprises his Widow Twankey - got up in a frilled jumpsuit that makes the nice but naughty Dame look like a poodle on heat - there is only a sprinkling of children in the audience. Sean Matthias's production entertains the kids, but it is clearly aimed more at adults eager to reconnect with their vulgar inner child.
Before Roger Allam's deliciously drawling Abbanazer has uttered a single word, the adults are hissing and ready to prove that they are entirely au fait with all the conventions. With its many theatrical in-jokes, this evening is infected with a certain knowingness, so that at times it feels more like a Tom Stoppard play than a panto, with half the audience smugly enjoying the joke and the other half looking slightly bewildered.
This is intended as a high-class version of a traditional low art form - a designer Christmas tree rather than a gaudy vision laden with multicoloured baubles. John Napier's design is a very clever box of delights that keeps opening like a giant chest of drawers to offer the audience a little visual present, including a bouncy-castle-style magic palace. It is highly contemporary, yet also a throwback to another era.
But if the design is the height of restraint and good taste, other elements lower the tone. Bille Brown's script has wit and some nice variations on the familiar story; it revives the panto tradition of topical jokes, with Blair, Bush and Cameron all getting name-checks. But it is also filthier than Little Britain. When McKellen's Twankey announces: "Strip it off and toss it up - I'm always ready for a big load," I had to check the programme to see whether Jim Davidson had a writing credit.
Panto, of course, has a long tradition of double entendre, and you can argue that these jokes should sail straight over the kids' heads. But the producers can't have their cake and eat it; they really have to make up their minds whether they want to attract a family audience or the nightclubbing crowd.
That said, there is plenty of fun to be had, and the performances, as you might expect, are top-notch. Frances Barber's warmly enjoyable Dim Sum is a model of craft, showing how even in panto less can be more. McKellen so clearly enjoys himself that you can't help but enjoy him. And Allam is a joy as a perfectly peachy and vile villain.
· Until January 22. Box office: 0870 060 6628.
