"Snoring Beauty" by Erewash Musical Society Youth Group.

Duchess Theatre, Long Eaton.

Written and Directed by Richard Dawson, actor, writer and legendary presenter on Erewash Sound who, starting on 25 February, will be broadcasting live for 50 hours from the Duchess Theatre to raise money for various charities - just thought I'd get that plug in there!

The story is similar to the normal "Sleeping Beauty" storyline but there's a slight difference with the person who breaks Malificent's spell over the Princess. At just under three hours long, it could be tightened up a smidge, but there's so much content in here, as well as an absolute abundance of cheesy jokes - jokes that could only be imagined by a radio presenter (trust me on this one!). They will make you groan, they will make you smile and they will also make you laugh out loud.

There's also a lot of music involved in this pantomime as well, with a whopping eighteen songs performed live. From classic songs from musicals such as "Matilda", "Hairspray" and "Dear Evan Hansen" to big pop hits from Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson, plus a couple of guilty pleasure favourites of m m m m m m mine (that's a clue to one of them!)

Izzy Cole plays Princess Aurora, the Snoring Beauty of the panto. Izzy, who I've seen before, I knew had a great voice and can dance, but as the Princess, she also shows a lovely comedy side of her acting.

Sky Stacey plays Prince Charming and, like Izzy, delivers a wonderfully comic role, and I can only repeat the above comments; great voice and dancing. Both Izzy and Sky contrasting with their previously quite serious roles in "Footloose" from last year.

Drew Boswell plays Dame Charming and for one so young, he completely gets panto and plays a fabulous Dame. He shows an ability to ad-lib when required and completely won over the packed Duchess Theatre with his charm, singing, dancing and especially the splits at the end of Act One.

I've seen young actors playing Dame, but Drew seems to really understand what is required to play this integral role; a role that is in no way easy to play, which is why there are only a few actors, of any age, make a career from playing this panto stalwart. And I don't know if he'll thank me for saying this, but he does suit the role and looks good as a panto Dame. A triple threat and a boon to any theatre troupe. Oh, and I love the accent!

Bethan Moore plays Malificent, who is very different to how this character is normally depicted in panto, she is really posh! And boy, is she really good, swanning on and off-stage oozing evilness, even to her sidekick, Mini Malificent, played by Yasmin Aldous. A deliciously nasty coupling who have really good chemistry, especially when Mini Mal starts to come out of her shell. Both competent singers and both really good dancers, and both have that ability to command the stage in their scenes.

Playing the good fairies are Kate Chamberlain (Flora), Eleanor Cooper (Forna) and Lauren Hazeldine (Merriweather) who bless the young Princess with nice attributes. Merriweather provides the comedy as the fairy who is nice quite as sharp as the other two.

Joel Dawson plays Prickly, Princess Aurora's best friend in her first sixteen years, before she returns back to the King and Queen's castle. Joel is consistent in his performing ability. Playing a hedgehog also gives rise to some unexpected comedy moments in the script, so watch out for them. I raved about his performance of Ren in last year's "Footloose", and the same applies to this role. Great fun role performed by a cracking young actor.

Oliver Nolan is the King. I can't remember seeing Oliver in any previous productions, so unsure how new he is to acting, but if this is his debut, I can see that he will go far. A brilliant character driven performance showing confidence in his acting ability. What I loved about this particular King is that normally the character is under the thumb of the Queen, these roles are reversed and the King is the more dominant role.....to start with.

The Queen is played by Jessie Gatehouse and we don't get to see too much of the Queen's character until Act two when she climbs out from under the King's thumb to take charge. Jessie is a slow burner of an actor, thanks to this role, but the wait is well worth it.

Noah Hickling plays The Fresh Prince, and here comes another of my guilty pleasure bits from this panto. The Fresh Prince, as you may have guessed is a real cool and streetwise character who gets to perform the rap from The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, which he does with swag. A little guy with a big talent for entertaining.

Toby Wykes plays Prince Prancer, one of the other Princes who take part in a TV inspired contest to win the chance to awaken the Princess. Another Prince who had a lovely comedy role with his horse, and I loved Toby's accent and physicality for Prince Prancer. As part of the ensemble he also showed that he could bust some moves as well.

Producing a panto allows a writer/director great scope to have a big ensemble, and that's no difference in this one. There's so much talent in this group, and every time I looked at the ensemble members, they were giving their all. The energy they put into the choreography was a real credit, not only to themselves, but to their choreographer.

The ensemble are Rosey Malins, Elis Moore, Evan Hagan, Kai Hagan, Sophie Foreman, Rose Staniford, Gabriella Tilley, Lowri Moore, Grace Sims, Eloise Chamberlain, Lacey Swinburne, Livvi Hickling, Blake Hagan, Harry O'Boyle, Jessie Jerram, Martha Smart and Clarissa Armitage.

Choreographed by Abbi Burns. With eleven musical numbers, as well as the extra incidental music, there's a lot of dancing on show. I especially loved the full cast and ensemble numbers because this highlighted the musicality and synchronicity within the group, especially in numbers like "You Can't Stop The Beat", which ended the show on a real high.

Set Design is by Bill and Mark Robbins, who also had the mountainous job as Stage Manager. The projected back scenes looked great and created even more of a fairy-tale feel about the show.

Musical Director is Gabryl Oleshko and it's very obvious that a great deal of hard graft has been put into this show by Gabryl with the cast. Not only that but as part of the five piece band with Martin Lewis (keys), Chris Renshaw (guitar), Jeff Widdowson (bass) and Andy Shelton (drums), they provided a solid backing to the cast.

Lighting design and operation is by Richard Chamberlain and Dave Martin. The start of the show had the house lights up and down, but only I'd notice that, right? Everything else about the lighting design was marvellously operated.

Sound design and operation is by Dave Dallard and Jack Clark, and with so many mics, there was just the one missed mic cue, right near the end when Prickly's mic cue just missed, so I certainly can't complain about that, especially on opening night.

The costumes are brilliant, especially inventive is Joel's costume and I loved Malificent's. the King and Queen's and of course all of Dame Charming's, in fact they were all excellent, and all sourced by the Committee along with Friends and family members.

The show is great fun, full of brilliant characters, packed with jokes and songs that everyone will know, some of the lyrics have been changed very cleverly to match the storyline, which I really enjoyed acknowledging. Richard Dawson has made sure that patrons to this show definitely get their money worth. Which you really do!

"Snoring Beauty" is at The Duchess Theatre in Long Eaton until Saturday 3 February.