Great fun, great performances in a Bognor panto to savour

The Regis Centre has long been the friendliest venue in the area, with by far the warmest welcome – and that’s one of the many, many reasons, it’s unfailingly the perfect place for panto.

And this year they’re offering a cracker. Just as they do every year, in fact.

It was difficult to believe this was only the show’s second performance we were watching. The Wizard of Oz has hit the (yellow brick) road running, with a couple of hours of splendidly spirited festive fun.

It all gets off to the best possible of starts: a warning that special technology has been fitted which will melt the “bum” of anyone whose phone goes off.

And then on comes Katie Bennett as an immediately engaging Dorothy. It’s Dorothy who holds it all together, and Bennett does so beautifully. Her singing is superb.

Just possibly the show takes just a little too long to get into the actual story of The Wizard of Oz, but then again, this is The Wizard of Oz such as you’ve never seen it before. There are plenty of liberties with the tale we all know, but there are also all the traditional panto routines, all of them delivered with style.

Drew Donnell, last seen in Bognor as Cruella in Cinderella, is terrific as the Wicked Witch, completely green and mean, a vain villain through and through – the perfect counterpart for Bognor favourite Vicky Edwards as the pinkest of pink good witches, a lovely performance full of heart and kindness. No one’s ever going to come to harm as long as she’s around.