Little Red Riding Hood ... and the Big Bad Wolf!, theatre Royal Winchester.

PANTOMIMES these days tend to be big, flashy affairs, packed like an over-stuffed turkey with cutting-edge technology and sundry Aussie soap stars.

You could be forgiven, in the circumstances, for wondering what has happened to traditional Christmas entertainment - the sort that involves actors rather than celebrities and relies as much for its effect on the audience's imagination as the size of its special effects budget.

Well don't despair, because the lost art of festive theatre has been rediscovered - in Winchester.

The Theatre Royal's latest annual Christmas show is one of the best you could hope to see anywhere; a superb but modestly-budgeted production that keeps the whole family gripped with its inspired but straightforward re-telling of a well-known fairy tale.

The actors do a wonderful job bringing to life the familiar tale of the girl and her family who are menaced by a big bad wolf.

Particularly memorable are Tim Barron as Wolf - reminiscent in his early stages of the cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz - and Mark Holman as a wheeler-dealer Weasel, who wouldn't have looked out of place in Albert Square.

Sarah Whittuck provided excellent comic support as the surprisingly frisky Grandma, while Rebecca Arch and Kieran Buckeridge bickered believably as Red and Robin Hood.

The script has enough comic wordplay to keep the grown-ups in the audience entertained, but is fast-paced and detailed enough to hold the under-tens' attention.

Little Red Riding Hood is a model of theatrical virtues whose best moments are guaranteed to live on in the imagination.

Runs until January 5.