"Dick Whittington"

We were down on numbers for our panto outing at our local theatre: Ida has had a nasty cough all over Christmas, and was a non-starter. The boys enjoyed themselves though.

But even they found the noise level excessive. Was the volume turned up so high simply to disguise the weakness of the script, the score and most of the acting? The redeeming feature was Tweedy the Clown, not that he traditionally has much of a part in the Dick Whittington storyline.

Not only was this year's Everyman effort a weak rendition of a lovely fable, but it was overlong: how the actors manage two performances a day I can't imagine: soul-destroying!