An audience packed with 80 Rainbows, Brownies and Guides is the ultimate test for a pantomime cast - but the Holybourne Theatre succeeded with Beauty and The Beast.

The girls had an early taste of the back to front world of panto when a woman (Hope Pattenden) walked out to play the Prince.

But for not helping an Old Woman (Yvette Walker) who called at his castle, the Prince was quickly turned into The Beast (Steve McCulley) when the Old Woman revealed herself to be The Enchantress.

Book-loving Belle (Stef Knight), her ditzy Welsh-sounding mother Dotty Trott, The Dame (Gareth Brown), and Rocco (Will Dickson), who was even more deeply in love with himself than he claimed to be with Belle, then took centre stage.

Rocco’s three little instrumental sections made the point to the handful of adults at the back - he posed to You Sexy Thing, I’m Too Sexy and Da Ya Think I’m Sexy? At no time did Belle agree!

Other songs included Dancing In The Street as the opening number, a poignant rendition of ABBA’s Slipping Through My Fingers, with Dotty Trott singing the lyrics about a mum never quite catching up with her daughter’s life, and a brilliant Belle and Prince duet to Crazy by Gnarls Barkley to end the first half.

All good pantos have a running joke. In this case it involved six dedicated girls determined to do their can-can dance, finally getting the chance to perform it at the fifth attempt - to huge applause.

Devoted mum Dotty Trott offers to cross the forest to visit a book fair for Belle, but she gets lost and is captured by The Beast.

Belle strides over to The Beast’s castle to demand her release and eventually persuades him to invite her for dinner - the first step towards breaking his curse.

But Rocco is still keen on taking Belle’s hand in marriage, and brings his sidekicks Bourbon (Seonaid Scott-Bromley) and Crouton (Lily-Rose Murphy) along for the ride as he attempts to slay The Beast in a sword fight to Eye Of The Tiger.

Rocco stabs The Beast from behind and all seems lost for Belle - but The Enchantress comes back just in time to reward him for changing his ways by lifting the curse and saving his life.

And in the great panto tradition of taking the mickey out of neighbouring towns, Rocco is banished to Aldershot to set up the dream wedding of Belle and the Prince for a happy ending.

My nine-year-old daughter Poppy - an off-duty Hampshire Brownie - was impressed enough to grab a picture with Belle, captured by her mum Lisa, after the show. Poppy said: “It was really good.”

There will be two more performances of Beauty and The Beast, at 3pm and 7pm on February 7. For tickets, priced £12.50, visit https://holybournetheatre.co.uk/

Paul Coates