Shoe-fire hit

Royal & Derngate's marketing masterminds have done a brilliant job this year with the shoe theme, using giant eye-catching ruby and silver versions of the footwear worn by Dorothy and Cinderella (the main house show) in the foyer.

I'm sure that Cinderella (opening on Dec 12) will offer all the usual reliable seasonal fun - with the bonus of seeing Jimmy Osmond taking his first panto role. But if you want that extra bit of theatre magic, the Royal, with its intimate and historic auditorium, is the place to go.

While most Christmas show experiences are so in-yer-face these days that they almost qualify as seasonal binge drinking, this Oz fizzes like real Champagne - distinctive, classy and bubbling with sheer joy. The feelgood factor is so high it's off the scale.

The venue's artistic director, Laurie Sansom, heads the terrific creative team which has brought some typically brilliant twists on the familiar tale - Munchkins and Witches are all over the auditorium and the poppy field scene with its simple but staggeringly effective enormous red curtain is a real highlight - and it's all home grown, everything done in house.

Watch for the rainbow switching to colour - but this one is on a Texaco ad, thanks to Sara Perks' excellent design.

Great live music is provided from a pit ensemble led by musical director Ian MacGregor, and pit itself is used for some unusual entrances.

But in the end it's down to on-stage chemistry, and the Royal has assembled a superb ensemble cast. Natalie Burt wears the ruby slippers as though born to them and brings a Sondheimish sensibility to her vocal work. It's not easy to get your own distinctive take on 'Rainbow', but this relatively inexperienced performer manages it admirably.

All the vocal and dance work is distinctively different, as is the Royal way, although Harry Morrison's Lion, excellent throughout, might have moved further away from the traditional tremolo of the set-in-stone movie reading. But his falls are easily the equal of the over-lauded Del Boy moment of numerous TV clip shows.

Kate Russell-Smith relishes her dual role of the two baddies, and while her opposite number, Christine Holman, does a terrific post-modern take on the Good Witch, all glitzy and ditzy cabaret sexiness, and dances brilliantly as The Jitterbug, she's far too glamorous to be Auntie Em. All this and a round-the-world sailor too!

Anthony Houghton (who impressed in the Old Rep's Treasure Island) switches admirably in his dual roles as the uncle and the Emerald City guard but clearly enjoys the chance for broad comedy his back-up role as a crow gives him. David Webber, too, is terrific as an audience-surveying crow as well as the Wizard and his ad-libbing kept the cast in stitches and was much appreciated by those of us punters who realised what was going on. That voice should keep him working solidly.

Darren Fawthrop's dance credentials (he's also the show's choreographer) are obvious in his wonderful Tin Man movements but he brings a terrific style to the speaking elements of his part as well. If ever they need a Niles in a Frasier revival, he must audition.

The Langley tribe's vote for showstealer (beside Toto, obviously) went to Marc Pickering's scarecrow, effortlessly appealing and funny throughout and, in a polar opposite style, as fine a mover as the Tin Man.

But the huge success of the show is down to its team effort - simply terrific. We'd have liked a bit of a karaoke finale to zip up the rather po-faced morality of the ending, but in the year of the credit crunch, your ticket money won't get you any better value than this - get off to see the Wizard while there are still a few seats left.