The music – like the pop-culture-reference mash-up of the finale – is more daring, weaving together Madonna and Aretha Franklin, Lizzo and Elton John, later giving Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s Shallow (from A Star Is Born) to the happy couple as a ballad soppy enough to suit their characters. There are so many wild identities here for the boys that it’s a shame girls won’t see themselves as anything other than models of classic femininity: Michele McGrath’s nicely vampish wicked stepmother, Jenny Dixon’s klutzy-cute fairy godmother, even Keila Ana Whelan’s fetching belter Cinderella (who, given the title role, but a straight one, is sadly left off the poster). When I say that their costumes are dazzling I mean it feels like being slapped in the face by a rainbow.

Check out Ryder himself, as Sparkle, Prince Charming’s attendant, in vertiginous high heels and shrink-wrapped in gold lamé, jousting knowingly with Buffy. Sizing up one dad in the audience, she lasciviously offers him “Tea? Coffee? A suggestive biscuit?” That’s panto in a nutshell: a confection for the kids with some edge for the adults, and enough liberating pleasure for everyone.Ĭheck out the professionalism of the dancers, both adults and children, a riot of windmilling limbs and power poses, under Paul Ryder’s indefatigable choreographyĬheck out the professionalism of the dancers, both adults and children, a riot of windmilling limbs and power poses, under Paul Ryder’s indefatigable choreography. Buffy’s job is to be a lustful parody of overripe femininity, with a licence to go fantastically rogue. Murphy, as Buffy, is tonight’s cohost, alongside Alan Hughes, a champion smiler, whose Sammy Sausages hastens along the plot, audience interaction and tart put-downs like a benign traffic warden.

Relocating to a big top – the Pantodome – at Royal Hospital Kilmainham, in Dublin, this production is not going to mess with the structure (it even re-creates an ornate proscenium arch – but Karl Broderick is restlessly inventive in his writing, matching the Grimm brothers with the giddy novelty of streaming pop charts, Instagram likes, Netflix must-sees and a wicked stepmother whose threats ring with modern terror: “No wifi?” shrieks the ugly stepsister Buffy (Rob Murphy) “We’d be living like animals.”

Pantomime is a pleasing contradiction, a form of performance that is as old as the hills that has to feel as fresh as the moment. Pantodome, Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin

Ciara like a boy parody