A bawdy ball with Cinders as the panto returns to the Palladium after 30 years

THE Palladium panto-mime will be back next year. and the year after that. oh yes it will!

Cinderella, which starts performances at the theatre tomor-row afternoon, has sold more than £5 mil-lion of tickets for its five-week run, said nick Thomas of Qdos entertainment, who is producing the show with Michael Harrison.

Thomas told me that Cinderella was the first panto to be mounted at the Palladium in three decades.

Harrison — who’s also co-direct-ing with choreographer andrew Wright (who created the knockout dance sequences for Half a sixpence at the noel Coward) — said he and Thomas had negoti-ated a deal with andrew Lloyd Webber’s theatre group (which owns the Palladium) to produce new pantos at the variety house in 2017 and 2018. ‘We have signed to do more!’ Harrison confirmed. Cinderella will tour next Christmas; and a new title will launch at the Palladium. We watched two of the stars, Paul o’Grady and Julian Clary, sharpen deliciously risqué banter that had something to do with snakes — and hanging around kennels — that may or may not have been located on Hampstead Heath. i also loved o’Grady (as Baron-ess Hardup) and his wicked step-daughters Hernia and Verruca (played by suzie Chard and Wendy somerville) singing a parody of Gloria Gaynor’s i Will survive. Before that, natasha J. Barnes (pictured), who plays Cinderella, did some slapstick, falling on and off a wall with Lee Mead’s Prince Charming and Paul Zerdin’s Buttons . . .all while singing Love Changes everything.

amanda Holden, as the Good Fairy, rehearsed out of costume (apart from sparkly heels she was breaking in) and waved a wand.

it was all very silly and very, very funny. ‘This old place should be laughing again,’ Harrison declared.

i wondered, though, if some of the script was a bit too blue for the odd delicate flower out there.

Harrison said: ‘When you put Julian Clary and Paul o’Grady on stage together, they’re not going to give you nursery rhymes.’

He added that he and his col-leagues have become adept at gauging how the dialogue works in the context of the show. ‘also, it has to appeal to a mass audience, so there are things that will fly over the kids’ heads,’ Harrison added.

‘We’re not pretending to be high art. We’re a London Palladium variety pantomime.’

oh yes they are!