In case you are still in the spirit for a pantomime Dominic Cavendish reviews the Oxford Playhouse's Sleeping Beauty and a sparkilng performance of Cinderella at the Derngate Theatre, Northampton  

Like a seaside-pier out of season, few things look more pointless than a panto in the New Year. The kids are going back to school, the adults have spent themselves skint - what's to enjoy? Besides which, let's face it, for many people, even in the jolly run-up to Christmas, pantos can be a trial, can't they?

Sleeping Beauty, the offering at the Oxford Playhouse is a prime example. It's perfectly adequate, very bouncy and quite fun - but you're mighty glad to escape it after two hours. As so often, a decent fairy-story is submerged, almost beyond recognition, by a pile of ephemeral silliness - including, surely against the new spirit of consumerist responsibilty this, a prolonged plate-smashing scene.

Stephen Aintree as the dame, Rosalinda Della Tinkle, has the requisite twinkle in his eye - and Carrie Ellis as the wicked god-mother induces a genuine frisson of theatrical excitement as she exhorts an entranced Beauty to prick her finger on a gift-wrapped spindle. In the main, though, much as I admire writer, director and former Blue Peter presenter Peter Duncan, it's deeply forgettable stuff, made almost painfully kitsch in its closing stages by a frenzied round of retro pop hits, including - for no discernible reason - Bucks Fizz's Making Your Mind Up. Small wonder so many are happy with Disney.

For what it's worth, best of the bunch this year is Northampton's Cinderella. Jimmy Osmond, an astonishingly youthful-looking 45 and still possessed of a smile that could light up Manhattan, plays Buttons with just the right easygoing charm. True, he inflicts his golden oldie 'Long Haired Lover from Liverpool' on undeserving tots - none of whose parents appear to know the words - but it feels fine to indulge him, especially when a reprise of another Osmond classic 'Crazy Horses' culminates in indoor-fireworks jetting from the end of his 'keytar'. Boy, Jimmy rocks.
As does everything else. Peter Piper is superb as a cheeky chappy Baron Hardup, impersonating David Attenborough, Ali G and John Cleese with aplomb. Gurning and pouting for Britain, Brian Godfrey and Darren Southworth give us two fantabulously horrible Ugly Sisters. There's plenty of puerile water-gun action, two real-life Shetland ponies to draw Cinders' coach and countless cracking gags ('Last time I saw a face like that, Tarzan was feeding a banana to it').

At its best the show reminds you of the late, suddenly quite lamented Woolies - cluttered and colourful, with something for everyone.

Oxford tickets: 01865 305305; to 18 Jan.
Northampton tickets: 01604 624811. To 11 Jan.