Just as traditional as Christmas panto is Northern Stage’s alternative offering.
Last year they gave us The Wind in the Willows – Mark Benton in his pomp as Mr Toad – and the year before that Peter Pan.
It was Hansel and Gretel in 2008, the brilliant A Christmas Carol in 2007 and the visually stunning A Little Prince in 2006.
Director Erica Whyman again teamed up with writer Stephen Sharkey, who adapted Peter Pan and A Christmas Carol, for this year’s Christmas show.
As Erica points out in the programme, which is rather wonderful, packed with historical facts and puzzles for kids, they were struck by the fact that the traditional Cinderella story was written in France in the 18th Century as a morality tale aimed at young ladies who might be inclined to misbehave.
They did the same show in a small theatre in London 11 years ago but reworked it for Northern Stage by relocating the tale to 18th Century Newcastle, when the city was a busy, cultural hotspot.
It tells the tale of Ella Humbleton who is left motherless at a young age and later falls under the bullying control of her vulgar stepmother and sisters, the Snifflewicks.
Since the region was known for glass-making at the time, the glass slippers idea makes sense. Alnwick Castle is the plausible location of the grand ball. But all this maybe constitutes the good news.
The bad news is that I was rather disappointed by this year’s show. On Saturday night it seemed a shadow of its predecessors with a static set throughout a long first half in which the jokes fell as flat as leftover bubbly.
Pretty much the opening scene is the death of Ella’s mum, who later returns (in the shape of cornet-playing Ann Marcuson) as guardian angel/fairy godmother, and it strikes a sombre note from which the show struggles to recover.
Unlike the programme, there’s little to engage young children and no knock-out visual moments to get the adults warmed up before the half-time drinks.
Laura Riseborough plays Ella, Will Featherstone is hot air balloon-fixated Prince Hubert and The Suggestibles’ Ian McLaughlin is cast as bluff King George (III). The latter does the best he can to raise a laugh with the material at his disposal.
As well as a blindingly good script, what the show appears to lack is a commanding on-stage presence, someone with a big enough personality to win over an audience, generate laughs and infuse a quite inexperienced cast with confidence.