A happy Christmas at the Coliseum

NOODLING FREE: Richard Fletcher (Wishee Washee), left and Fine Time Fontayne (Widow Twankey).

Aladdin, Oldham Coliseum, to January 10

THIS year’s Coliseum panto breezes into life with a great rendition of Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” — and pretty much doesn’t let up until you go home feeling exactly that way.

The Coliseum panto can rightly be considered a regional, rather than local institution, and as with many institutions, there is thankfully no move to change something that isn’t broken.

Back for the umpteenth time are Fine Time Fontayne as dame and co-writer with enthusiastic director Kevin Shaw, Richard J Fletcher as a compact powerhouse of daftness, Justine Bailey as principal boy, and another almost-regular Adonis Anthony — quite the best baddie I’ve seen in years.

With a nod to local history — well that’s putting it a bit grandly; the laundry backdrop says “Home of the Tubular Noodle” — the show glories in its traditions; a lot of fun, lots of soap suds, some good ensemble dancing and not too much singing (and how a bit of West Side Story, sung by genie Umar Malik and slave of the ring Kaitlin Howard, got in there I’m not quite sure).

True, it looks not quite so lavish this year: it’s colourful and silly, but Finetime Fontayne has only three costumes you could call showstoppers: a bowl of noodles (which actually does stop the show when he can’t get up in it), one of Despicable Me’s minions, and a terrific dragon for the finale, all some of designer Celia Perkins’ best work. And the sound could be better; from my seat I found it quite hard to work out what some of the characters were saying.

But these are easily ignored: the show belongs to Fontayne and Fletcher, a strong double-act of daftness; Fontayne coming up with every possible rhyme for the word Twankey along the way and Fletcher once again chucking himself round the stage like he won’t have to do so twice a day for the next six weeks.

Justine Bailey is again a good-humoured principal boy, Nicole Evans a feisty Princess and Ian Aspinall amusing as the Emperor, but Adonis Anthony — looking this time more like Russell Brand than his previous Johnny Depp incarnations — is terrific as Abanazar, with his own louche catchphrases and complete ambivalence about the enjoyment of the audience. Terrific.

I went home happy.