Peter Pan, Malvern Theatres

WELL I really am reviewing the situation and there's no need for Ron Moody to think it all out again - he and pantomime are made for each other.

The veteran actor, headlining as Captain Hook, ups the ante. The more you boo, the more he plays up to it - so if you've yet to see the show, be prepared to exercise those vocal chords.

Not even a couple of first-night mistakes threw him, in fact a bit of ad libbing to the audience made extremely funny virtues of them.

The show allowed him to throw in references to his other great musical creation - Fagin from Oliver!

Moody is the royal icing on, it has to be said, a somewhat uneven cake. The evening's other outstanding contributor being Jon Monie, a great physical presence who spent most of the night cross-eyed and pulling comic faces.

He was witty, quick, agile and gave a performance which drew the eye even when he wasn't part of the main action.

Kasia Haddad's Tiger Lilly was less a Redskin, more African tribal queen crossed with a Ninja fighter but demonstrated a considerable talent for singing and (dads please note) sexy dance routines.

Some great tumbling routines from The Nitwits, who made up the rest of the pirates, helped jolly up the mix but some of the singing didn't always hit the note and, at times, the sound needed better balancing.

Unfortunately key to Peter Pan, the flying looked just clumsy - the backstage crew stopping short of slamming Gemma Lowy-Hamilton into the wall on her first entrance but causing her to lose her balance.

A careless moment also left a counter-balance swinging into the audience's view not once but several times.

These and some other glitches I'm sure will be ironed out over time - I just hope the audience learns to shut up a bit in the right places too.

You can forgive young children for talking at times - but too many adults seemed to think they were at home in front of the television.

And that's just downright rude. Juliette Kemp