Misfit Productions’ adult pantomime Red Hot Riding Hood at Grantham’s Guildhall Arts Centre is not one to be missed

We all have our own favourite kind of humour — slap-stick, dead-pan, cheeky etc.

But Misfit Productions’ adult pantomime Red Hot Riding Hood will cater to all humour as it’s just that darned funny.

We the audience at Grantham’s Guildhall Arts Centre knew we were in for a good night when our fairy godmother Stella (Anita Lane bringing glamour and yet cheeky wit) greeted us as the curtain went up with a severe bout of flatulence and a rather X-rated rhyme.

The story sees the Big Bad Wolf (brilliantly played with camp yet sinister aplomb by Milly Fern Parker) go on the rampage, chasing the Three Little Pigs, Slimey (Halle Mae), Grimey (Danny Yates), and Hamslit (Keira Lilly), who play off each other very well.

The local woodsman (the dashing Dan Fielding) is the hero of the plot with an extra long “chopper” trying to save poor, innocent Red ‘Hot’ Riding Hood (sweetly-played by the talented Laura Bolshaw).

Duncan Fielding plays our pantomime dame Betty with excellent comic timing and I felt a little sorry for the poor chap sitting in the front row who became the object of the dame’s outrageous affections! But it takes a great deal of talent to keep the jokes and ad-lib humour coming and Duncan was simply outstanding.

Village idiot Buster was brought to life by Simon Leigh with hilarious results. According to the programme, Simon has played ‘Wishee-Washee’ characters before, and you can tell as he was exceptionally funny and had the audience in stitches with his silly antics.

Meanwhile Michelle Baker and Dennis George were great as bakers Wilma and Arthur, with Debs Hart bringing a fantastic amount of acerbic wit as Anna, trying to muscle her way in on the “happy” couple.

A very special mention must go to dancers Sophie Cheung, Shannon Morton, Chloe Hull, and Rosie Lawson who are all superb and the slick choreography was of professional standard.

As you can imagine, I could fully name very few of the characters in this review as they’re not suitable for the eyes of those under the age of 16, but the full cast deserve all the credit as every one of them were fantastic and were clearly having a ball.

Tickets have almost sold out so if you want to catch this show before it ends on Saturday — and you absolutely should if you like your humour to be naughty — then get them from the Guildhall’s website now!

Hats off to directors Simon Selby and Anita Lane who have put together an incredibly funny and X-rated pantomime — the costumes were stunning, the scenery was spot-on, the special effects were flawless…overall, it was excellent.

And I’ll never be able to hear Zorba the Greek and the Superman song in the same way again…