Went to the Stephen Fry-penned panto Cinderella at the Old Vic last night.  Probably better for literate bright young things rather than small children, but extremely funny and very enjoyable nonetheless.  Eloquently rude, as you might expect (watch out for the jokes about "inanition" and "your urgent and persistent cock") and all tremendous good fun.

Sandi Toksvig is especially good ad-libbing as the narrator.  On our night, the two young volunteers for the "baking" segment turned out to be called Daisy and Lily, who ruined a joke about Fortnum & Mason by enthusiastically saying they shopped there.  Toksvig spun it into gold anyway and still managed to include the girls in the fun.  No small skill, that.

Fry misses one opportunity for a good joke, though.  Near the end (and I'm giving nothing away) the prince proposes to Cinderella with a ravishing "Will you marry me?", which is then echoed by Dandini proposing to Buttons (in apparently a mainstream panto gay first), who also ravishingly says "Will you marry me?"  Wouldn't it be funnier for Dandini to ravishingly say, "Will you join me in a legally binding civil partnership ceremony?"  Trust me, it may not work on paper, but onstage, it'd be a bigger laugh.