There are a few guaranteed seasonal goodies which never fail to amuse year after year - like that terrible jumper knitted by auntie and the naff Ferrero Rocher ads on TV. The Christmas show at Warwick Arts Centre is decidedly un-naff, more than living up to its seasonal expectations - it's usually one of the most interesting in the region, and this year is no exception.

Cinderella offers bags of fun and catch-your-breath magic for all the family without any panto nonsense - and, like our 11-year-old, you may even get the chance to dance with the prince. A word of warning, though. This version by Ben Power and Melly Still goes back to the tale as retold by the Brothers Grimm, so there are genuinely dark elements - as in all the best fairy tales.

Spymonkey's Moby Dick, currently opening a nationwide tour at Royal&Derngate, Northampton, must be the funniest show on any stage in Britain at the moment.

Given the company's global reach, that accolade will soon, no doubt, read 'anywhere in the world'. It really is that brilliant. Sly and witty, deftly debunking theatrical conventions at every turn, full of brilliantly-executed physical comedy, with warm and winning turns from a company of four magnificent performers, it is an absolute must-see.

Here's a link for you. Launched at Nottingham Playhouse today (Wednesday Sept 16) it's a new, easy-to-use website aimed at providing blind and deaf people with more information about their local theatres and the facilities they have to offer including details of British Sign Language interpreted, captioned and audio described performances.

The website also includes audio clips and a facility for screen enlargement. It also allows blind people to use their own screen readers and magnifiers effectively. Deaf people can make use of the film clips, which translate much of the site into British Sign Language.

It's easy to see why Disney's Beauty and the Beast has picked up so many award nominations. The current UK touring production, at Birmingham's Alex in June and at Stoke's Regent next week, is playing to packed houses in Northampton this week - a bit of a step change from my last few visits to take in the various elements of the Royal & Derngate's brilliant Ayckbourn season.

But this is state of the art musical theatre, filling the huge Derngate stage with clever film inserts, heart-stopping pyrotechnics, wonderful cartoon-style comedy (don't forget the 'Disney' in the title), excellent live music and some fabulous performances. A magnificent chunk of family entertainment delivered with energy by a superb company.

It felt a bit strange, sitting in a darkened theatre listening to spooky old tales on a glorious July evening in sunny Lichfield, I have to admit. But that's the make-believe of theatre for you.

I seem to have become a bit of an unofficial groupie for pint-sized, Birmingham-based theatre company The Happiness Patrol, with their minimum fuss, maximum imagination approach. And Tales of Terror was pure storytelling at it's most stripped-down. Just a teller, an audience and that strange magical hold that a story exerts over its listeners. (And the occasional coffin.)

There aren't many moments during a theatre production which could prompt me to barge my way through the audience (pushing cast members aside as well, incidentally) to see what is going on. But, yes, the prospect of watching fascinating actress Lucy Briers performing solo hardcore porn is one. Purely professional curiosity, you understand.

But I restrained myself. It was happening on a VHS tape being played on a TV at the other side of the, performing area, you see. An extraordinary, unsettling, hilarious, and weirdly moving moment in a show which is all of those things and more from the moment you enter the auditorium of the Royal Theatre at Northampton.

I've recently struggled to the end of an Open University course. It's the first time A363 has been offered, and it needs a bit of sorting out before next year, most of my fellow students agreed. Anyway, one of the brighter spots was listening to Alan Ayckbourn on an OU CD talking about his writing methods and delving into his splendid book, The Craft Art of Playmaking - it's easily available on Amazon and is a great read for anyone vaguely interested in the theatre.

He says he has never consciously decided to write comedy or drama - just 'write a play'. The degree of lightness or darkness involved is often a matter of the theme, he says, and 'the darker the subject the more light you must try to shed on the matter.' Deliberate dramatic ambiguity with that word 'light'.

Hi readers and welcome to a new blog phenomenon. It's called a Zacharanda in honour of Steve, the Birmingham journalist who became a worldwide internet phenomenon by allowing himself to be filmed and broadcast while allegedly filing a report to his newspaper on the US election.

He was simply doing a cut and paste job from the BBC he said, and, on air, as it were, resigned from his staff job. I believe he had already accepted redundancy, but it caused a sensation and made him a hero of reporters everywhere.

So, in that tradition, I've done a cut and paste job, a Zacharanda. Seems utterly pointless me doing a rewrite of a perfectly good report from an efficient press office. The picture up there, by the way, by Robert Day, is of Kim Wall, Dorothy Atkinson and Matthew Cottle on the splendid set of Just Between Ourselves, mentioned below.Here's my Zacharanda:

Thazz the way ter do it! ... run a puppet festival, that is.

It seems entirely appropriate to use the famous catchphrase of one of the world's favourite characters (Mr Punch, in case you didn't realise - shame on you) to commend in the highest possible terms Dynamics 09 International.

This, the largest puppet festival in England, runs from this upcoming Saturday (May 23) until July 18 has 18 different shows on offer in more than 30 locations featuring the best UK and international performers in this highly specialised and increasingly popular field. Experience of previous events suggests it will be - not to put too fine a point on it - brilliant

Bob Dylan, said to have taken his name from a certain Welsh poet, once memorably referred to something as not his 'cup of meat'. Fabulous phrase. I know exactly what he means, because that Welsh poet has the same effect on me. Ditto Tolkein. Ditto Star Wars. Ditto Ornette Coleman, The Apprentice, gin, and on and on. We're all like that .Diff'rent strokes and so forth.

I wasn't always like that about Mr Thomas. But the boy once wrapped and wrapt spellbound in the warm, wheeling wonder of the web of words woven wild with bardic brilliancy, grew into an adult of some discernment. So, although I'm now a hardcore vegetarian, I can appreciate fine cuisine of all sorts. I just don't want to eat it.