It's panto time (oh yes...)

Director Kerry Michael has a sure eye for innovative staging and sporadically introduces ingenious stick puppets into the action. Satisfaction for all ages guaranteed.

A Christmas Carol
Hackney Empire Bullion Room, E8

A wail must have gone up in East London this year when it emerged that the reconstructed Hackney Empire wouldn't open in time to stage Aladdin. Streetwise and flamboyant, the Hackney Empire panto has long been a byword for unpretentious entertainment, and boasts a reputation for pantomime dames with attitude.

The mother-of-all pantomime writers, Susie McKenna, has luckily come up with an ingenious alternative. In the Bullion Room behind the Empire she has devised a storyline where two builders wander in from the main theatre to find themselves engaged on another reconstruction project: conjuring up A Christmas Carol with the help of the public, a homeless boy, a cat, and a mouse with thespian pretensions.

Plenty of explosive fun ensues - not least because of TV presenter and DJ Kat B, the funkiest nephew any stage Scrooge has boasted. Wayne Rollins as Scrooge almost started a riot when he joked that the children should be removed by Social Services - and from then on his position as bad guy was impressively unassailable.

Sometimes the vocabulary goes over the children's heads, but with limited resources, and an impressively scary range of ghosts, this is Dickens with bite.

Dick Barton Episode V: The Excess of Evil

Croydon Warehouse

ANYONE seeking large helpings of ham should head straight to the Warehouse Theatre. Here you will witness stiff upper lips, patronising comments about foreigners, and best-of-British innuendo combined in celebration of the 1940s radio hero, Dick Barton.

Maybe I've been seeing too much pantomime, but George Asprey's Dick seems rather too rigid in an evening which puffs and pants to satirise British imperialism both ancient and modern. But the show's creators, Duncan Wisbey, Stefan Bednarczyck and Ted Craig, have come up with several Christmas crackers - not least in a traditionally dominatrix-style Nanny and a sadistic German with unhappy memories of public school. An ingenious plot with more twists and turns than you'd get from an exhibitionist boa-constrictor also compensates for the often groan-a-minute material.

The audience is whisked from meetings with Clement Attlee and Lord Reith in Britain to Morocco, France, America and an unstable Middle Eastern country called Abroadia with no more than an upright piano, basic props, and a glint in the eye to help them. Vicki Simon rallies well in an assortment of wigs which transform her from Dick Barton's sweetheart Dorabella Nobbs to the duplicitous twin daughters of the King of Abroadia.

An assortment of Hutton-Inquiry-linked jokes also spice-up this romp through the dated British psyche.

Rumpelstiltskin
Cochrane Theatre, WC1

Adults will be delighted to witness the level of junior audience participation induced by this delightful production from the Unicorn children's theatre. When the Miller's Daughter, languishing in despair in the palace basement, laments "I can't spin straw into gold," several children leapt up and shouted "Yes you can!"

Mike Kenny's version of this classic tale simultaneously boasts complexity and admirable narrative clarity. It's a salutary warning about vain boasts - it's the Miller who lands his beloved only child in such trouble with the bankrupt and peevish young king - and the importance of fighting fiercely for what you love.

Director Emily Gray oversees a pleasing ensemble of seven, including Eleanor Moriarty as the spoilt daughter, who is forced to grow up fast when her own child's life is at risk, and Dale Superville as the scheming eponymous sprite.

The cast whizzes energetically around Tim Meacock's nicely conceived split-level set, which is overshadowed by a looming spinning wheel. Underneath the floorboards dwell a group of "fair folk" who, in between causing havoc for the humans, function as an astute commentary on the action. And there's a final humorous touch: the King's parents are revealed to be Cinderella and the late Prince Charming. Go and fill in a gap in a child's - or your own - knowledge of fairytales.

The Twits
UCL Theatre, WC1

Earlier this month two Canadian medical students protested about irresponsible representations of head injuries in nurseryrhymes, so one can only wonder what they might conclude about domestic violence in The Twits. David Wood's adaptation of Roald Dahl's dark comedy is a tartly spirited show for those who want panto with all of the slapstick and none of the romance.

This version of The Twits has been touring in different productions since 1998, and it has evolved considerably in liveliness and visual inventiveness. The children in the audience explode with enthusiasm from the moment a gipsy band makes its cacophonic way from the back of the auditorium to the stage where the sadistic pranks begin.

Wood's adaptation takes Dahl's description of The Twits history as circus performers and uses it to make the whole production an opportunity for acrobatics and clowning. Director Kathi Leahy has created vivid monsters in Wendy Reed's Mrs Twit and Richard J Fletcher's Mr Twit.

The fart jokes and insult-hurling can feel exhaustingly one-dimensional, and Dahl's darkly moral perspective is not always strong enough here. But even so, the audience experiment involving gravity and shoes is worth waiting for.

The Emperor and the Nightingale
Watermill Theatre, Newbury

There can be few greater rewards for an actor in a Christmas show than to look into the upturned face of an engrossed child. Following last year's success with The Firebird, the ever-ingenious Watermill goes one better with this Hans Christian Andersen-based tale, and ensures that a young audience, and the adults accompanying them, are kept spellbound.

The story, of a fractious young emperor who grows to maturity with the aid of a forthright country girl, might initially appear slight, but Neil Duffield's adaptation refreshingly requires more of its spectators than the average festive fare. It asks them to make subtle and valuable differentiations, between true of heart and false of mind, and real value as opposed to material worth.

The Watermill's trademark is its employment of actor-musicians, and a spirited cast of six conjures up rural and imperial China. Louise Clayton's Xiao, a young girl who leaves her mountaintop for a job as the Emperor's second assistant parasol carrier, is winningly headstrong.

Philip Witcomb's clever design sees the playing space reconfigured in the round, with the action unfolding under a red and gold chinoiserie canopy bedecked with lanterns. Fiona Laird, the director who made her name at the National with Oh! What a Lovely War, has another hit on her hands. Grab the nearest child and take to the M4.