We take Misaki and Natsuki to a panto every year, usually the one at Hackney Empire because of Clive Rowe. He's an Olivier Award winner and he also played Morvin Van Hoff in Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned... but he's probably the best panto dame I've ever seen. He's brilliant. I've seen him make co-stars corpse just by looking at them. He usually (although not always) appears in the Hackney Empire panto, but this year he's the director and doesn't appear on-stage.

The good news, though, is that this is a strong one and I'd recommend it. I've come away from Hackney Empire pantos in the past mildly grumbling about their lack of story. Last year's was Dick Whittington and it was basically Clive Rowe carrying a bunch of fun, loud, fairly random scenes that occasionally meandered in the vicinity of Dick Whittington. This year, though, is Cinderella and there's a reason that's one of the classics. That has serious plotting and this take on it actually does quite well there, with quite a tight script and a couple of scenes that work even on a non-panto level. (Cinderella being forced to tear up her invitation and Buttons's love confession getting rejected.) They even made me go WHAT THE HELL with a revelation in the second half. (That doesn't actually go anywhere, but hah.)

This year's musical numbers go heavier than usual on the pop songs, but the production values are impressive (especially Cinderella's magic dress transformation which had Misaki asking me "how did they do that?"). The baddies steal the show, obviously, with a surprisingly evil wicked stepmother (married and then murdered Baron Hardup) and of course wonderful Ugly Sisters. Tomoko lost her mind for the crazy pink wig of one of them. (They'd cast someone tall and thin, then given him platform boots and an 18th century-a-like wig that I'd guess added another two feet to his height.) The goodies can be a bit bland sometimes, but I liked Chrissie Bhima as Dandini and Jade Johnson as the Fairy Godmother.

Genuinely worth a look. I think it's running until the end of December. Back in 2007, I took Tomoko to a Cinderella panto written by Stephen Fry at the Old Vic Theatre. I was surprised by the celebrities in the lobby afterwards and, yes, Kevin Spacey popped through. That one was excellent (and quite rude). This one's louder and broader, but it actually holds up pretty well to that extremely fierce comparison.