Geordie Panto Company’s Cinderella is a big-hearted and a big-hatted production.
Sharon and Tracey Ugly (Maxie Peters and Finbar Healy) are rude without being risqué, the dancers are adorable (especially the mice!) and the cast work as a tight-knit team.
The show opens with Come Alive from The Greatest Showman and following your dreams "with your eyes wide open" is the theme of the pantomime .
Other big numbers include Dance Yourself Dizzy, Marry Me and Here Come the Girls – introducing the two Uglies. They call themselves the Kardashians and they certainly capture a flavour of the bickering sisters. But that’s where the similarity stops: Sharon and Tracey are playing for laughs, and there’s plenty to be had.
Less Kim and Khloé, and more Mr and Mrs Twit, The Ugly Sisters are two outrageous bullies – cheeky to the audience and horrible to Cinderella (Emily Swan).
This Cinderella is not just a bit-part, so often completely overshadowed by the two men with the huge hairdos. She’s sparkly fun and moves the show along, aided by Buttons (Lewis Jobson).
He has the enviable job of whacking a bag of Quavers into the audience with a tennis racquet, along with getting all the kids to sing and do the actions to the K-pop Baby Shark song.
I appreciate the old-fashioned "magical" staging involved in the pumpkin transformation, but the roof-raiser is the ghoulies bedtime scene featuring Frankenstein’s monster and a zombie.
‘The 12 Days of Christmas is also a family favourite with the joke on Buttons as all his balloons get popped one by one. He might have been disappointed… but you won’t be.
The Geordie Panto Co's Cinderella is at Gateshead International Stadium until December 29.
