SLEEPING Beauty reunites the creative partnership of writer Andrew Pollard and producer Joyce Branagh for the fourth consecutive year in Huddersfield, with their experience and enthusiasm shining strongly in a pantomime packed with regional gags, double entendres and audience interaction.

The cast of familiar faces from previous productions underpins the exuberance, with the easy rapport between performers a joy to watch. It's particularly evident when Robin Simpson as Nanny Fanny and Nicola Jayne Ingram as Hester the Jester humorously ad lib to cover audience interventions and fluffed lines.

Such moments are key drivers in a production that, on paper at least, has questionable pacing and a plot that only broadly stays true to the original fairy story.