A bear, a panda, a fox and an all-singing, all-dancing cast fill the stage as sweets are catapulted into the upper circle on tennis rackets. Meanwhile the Crazy Frog is shot dead, Allan Stewart spins round on a motorised wheelchair flashing his matronly Mother Goose legs and Andy Gray (aka Hamish McFly) puts a local spin on this year’s Peter Kay/Tony Christie hit with Is This the Way to Portobello. And that’s just the first five minutes of this pacey Mother Goose.

We’re yet to see baddie Grant Stott making his flying entrance from the upper circle looking like something from an Adam Ant video in his silver suit, mane of pirate hair and stripe of face paint. Still to come is Stewart and Gray’s crowd-pleasing turn as Vicky Pollard and Daffyd, the only gay in the Village, from Little Britain.

This year’s seasonal spectacular starts as it means to go on, packing in the jokes and ripping through the plot like the lean and mean panto machine it is.

There have been times when the King’s panto has topped three hours, but this one is an efficient two, minimising the extraneous variety turns. This allows the cast to focus on the mission of rescuing Priscilla the Goose and returning Mother Goose from a slimline 1960s hippy chick to her old ample self (“I was so fat the cheeks of my bum had different postcodes”).

The result is a feelgood romp that highlights the formidable talents of Stewart and Gray, one of panto’s great double-acts, in such a way that you barely notice the weaknesses in the plot. The two men never stop to draw breath, racing from costume to costume and gag to gag, one minute floating high above the stage in a deep sea-water sequence, the next leading the chorus in an upbeat song without missing a note.

Both are adept comedians. As well as the corny one-liners about step-ladders and feather duvets, they work in topical references to Carol Thatcher, Rebekah Wade and the Royal Marines. But neither milks the audience nor overstays his welcome. They keep it genial and tuned in, but never indulgent. It’s a display of disciplined comedic craft that leaves you wanting more.

They’re not the only ones on stage worth mentioning, however, and this year’s team, under the direction of Paul Elliott, gives punchy support. There is real verve in the performances of Claire Dargo, feisty as Mother Goose’s daughter, Stott, who has shaken off his old woodenness as Demon Vanity, and Jo Freer, fantastic as a gallus, mobile phone-obsessed Fairy McSquirrell-Smythe, with a superb singing voice and a fine line in Catherine Tate impressions.

There’s none of the sentimental support we saw in last year’s Aladdin, which is a welcome improvement, but neither is there a substantial emotional heart to the story. Once Priscilla the Goose has been kidnapped by Demon Vanity, we learn nothing about her plight. She is rescued not by any particular act of bravery, just by Mother Goose showing commitment.

Events just happen rather than being determined by the characters — most blatantly in the case of Dargo’s Jill, who spends the whole show looking for a lover until the closing scene, when she just finds a man at random.

It speaks volumes for the zest and sparkle of the panto that none of this is as dissatisfying as it should be. What you remember is the fun, pace and enjoyment.

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