There could hardly have been a more appropriate choice for a pantomime this year. On the current showing, Dick Whittington stands as much chance as anyone of becoming Mayor of London.

The location apart, though, this year's Alhambra panto - traditionally the biggest and best in the region - is a solidly northern affair.

That's very much in its favour, because nothing plays in the north as well as traditional northern comedy, and in the Chuckle Brothers we have two of its great practitioners.

Children love Paul and Barry Chuckle (Elliott, to give them their Sunday names) and so do I. Their routines may have their roots in generations past but in their hands they're as fresh as the audience is young. I've seen the old sand dance done many times but never better. Their comedy echoes from the music halls of long ago; it's innocent and infectious. They're probably the last of the line.

In Tony Peers, the Scarborough comic done up as a Les Dawson-ish Dame, they have a perfect foil. He's another northern trouper who can milk laughs from gags that wouldn't even make sense south of Mansfield. "Is the cat a Tom?" "No, I've brought it with me."

For good measure (and what a measure it is) Emmerdale's Lisa Riley is the fairy, and Craig Urbani - last seen on stage here as the Fonz in Happy Days - is Dick.

There are some terrific laser effects and a wonderful, luminous octopus inhabiting the sea bed. And, of course, there are the inimitable Sunbeams.

It is, as you'd expect from the Alhambra at this time of year, a big show.

We like to get our money's worth up here, and I doubt if anyone in the first night audience felt short changed.

As a matter of fact, they may have had too much of a good thing: the first half could have stood 20 minutes' pruning quite easily. No doubt by now the producer will have wielded the shears.

The panto runs until February 5, by which time Paul and Barry will have been admitted as honorary members into the Alhambra's not inconsiderable hall of fame. Francis Laidler, the theatre's founder and the king of pantomimes past, would have loved this one.

l Tickets are bookable on 01274 752000.

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