The annual Chipping Norton pantomime is two hours of burping happiness played out in the tiny, exquisite Theatre (a former Salvation Army hall), and it offers the perfect antidote to all those glitzy commercial metropolitan shows with celebrity stars and tired, cheesy scripts. No wonder the box office queues start forming when the tickets go on sale in July. This is a truly rural event that succeeds in raising a laugh and a groan from a mention of foot and mouth, and must be the only panto in the land to feature a maypole. Simon Brett's script is as intelligent as any self-respecting panto script could be, and is full of daft jokes, puns and local references ("How do you make someone from Banbury cross? Tell them you come from Chipping Norton").
The production has an unaffected freshness, most of all in Simon Higlett's delightful pop-up storybook design, which harks back to a gentler age of festive entertainment, and the captivating music and songs from Peter Pontzen. Everything is low-key, including Dudley Rogers' appealing debt-laden Mother Goose, a dame who lacks the flashiness and ego that afflicts so many pantomime dame performers.
At just over two hours, the show is perhaps a little over-stretched, and clarity is sometimes sacrificed to action in the second half, but it is a genuinely delightful entertainment that passed that crucial panto patrol test: I couldn't resist joining in the singalong.
· Until January 6. Box office: 01608 642350.
