It’s not quite clear exactly which ‘yam yam’ frogs the team at the Wolverhampton Grand have been kissing of late, or what dark and forbidden tomes they may have been plundering, but there’s no denying there’s magic abound in the Black Country this Christmas.

It’s no fluke, either. The regional theatre has been swinging hard and hitting strong with its impressive slew of in-house panto productions in recent years, and with this gigawatt Beauty, they score a gorgeous, hilarious home run.

A panto with actual, legitimate plot twists? Colour me floored. One of the strongest winners in the entirety of the Drag Race oeuvre vamping and camping up the best panto villain you’ll see this year? Gagged and stupefied. A joyful homecoming for the theatre’s resident panto MVPs, Ian Adams and Tam Ryan? Tens across the board.

It’s a dizzyingly fun, colourful and vibrant evening of distilled panto magic, stuffed with signature set pieces (the year we don’t get an Adams ‘I Don’t Care’ sequence is when the pitchforks come out), a smorgasbord of impressions, slapstick fun and genuinely impressive song and dance numbers and production values that will whisk you away beyond even the West End.

“…a dizzyingly fun, colourful and vibrant evening of distilled panto magic.”

It’s Sleeping Beauty a la pantomime, so the core narrative beats are present, tried and true, this time housed in the whimsical kingdom of old Bilstonia (sound familiar?). Adams and Ryan have a lot of fun with the fairytale tropes and cultural postmodernisms alike. As is custom, they offer up plenty of jabs and swipes at everything from the likes of Rachel Reeves, Keir Starmer, that numerical craze… and, well, Smethwick (naturally).

There’s more conventional (see: extremely welcome) fare – such as when Ryan, as ‘Mickey Fortune’ mines lots of laughter from a fun but familiar extended bit about voice recognition and hit songs. Once again kids of all ages lap up his top-notch clownery throughout. Adams, as ‘Mary Fortune’, again delivers your quintessential panto dame with verve, double entendre and toe-tapping bonhomie to spare.

If the stalwarts again posit themselves as being amongst the best in the biz, the newcomers more than keep up, too. Comedy impressionist (and former Corrie star) Debra Stephenson is a kindly presence as ‘Queen Bertha’, but really shines when she’s cut loose to serve up her wheelhouse of impersonations. Whipping through the likes of Stacy Solomon, Lorraine Kelly and even Donald Trump, it’s quite disarming – and deliciously entertaining – being reminded just how bloody good she is at it. Sure, the likes of Anne Robinson may be mining the depths of relevancy a bit too far for some of the audience, but by the time a little Cilla croons in, at least Ryan is ready with a quip for the younger generation to ‘ask your grandparents’.

Georgia Iudica-Davies is lovely and in fine voice as the titular heroine, whilst TV star Zak Douglas offers up some great physical comedy as the hapless ‘Gerald the Herald’. Good luck finding a more perfect or dashing panto prince than musical theatre star (and local lad done good) Solomon Davy. Davy continues his ascent and showcases why a future Fiyero or similar is surely on the cards, and just you wait for his ‘I’m All Alone’ number in the second act… not least of all thanks to its utterly bonkers and inspired finale (particularly moving on the performance reviewed, for reasons patrons of the Grand will have appreciated).

“…a barnstorming performance and one that Beard makes worth the price of admission alone.”

Which leaves the inimitable, towering colossus of camp that is Danny Beard. It’s alchemy of the most malevolent and masterful sort, as not only does Beard utterly command the stage with every strut, stomp and even Fosse (seriously, Chicago fans will be in their element here) but so too is his Carabosse as raucously funny as she is delectably sinister. Whether belting out Conchita Wurst, ratcheting up the spectacle summoning pillars of flames or even a towering dragon for our heroes to do battle with, it’s a barnstorming performance and one that Beard makes worth the price of admission alone. That this particular reviewer was almost crying with laughter at just a ridiculous Irish drawl when Carabosse dons a disguise is testimony to the triple (quadruple?… clock the mug) threat that the drag champion represents.

Beard is helped in no small way by David Shields’ wonderful costume work, with Carabosse’s outfits in particular routinely threatening to steal the show. But Shields spreads his magic across the breadth of Bilstonia and its residents and, coupled with Sam Hilditch’s glorious technicolor bedazzlement and David Janson and Natalie Bennyworth’s spritely, energised direction and choreography keep this Beauty far too eye-popping to ever send you off to sleep. There’s zombie chickens, vaudeville style tap numbers, repeat nods to The Traitors, a villainous spin on the Cell Block Tango, and an anarchic riff on the Twelve Days of Christmas that, if something of a chestnut, is a spiritedly executed one at that.

Whilst Beard towers over the cast and company – clocking in at just over eight feet in full stilettos and regalia – and his brilliant, bombastic Carabosse threatens to do the same over the whole show, the truth is there is excellence on show everywhere you look here. It ticks so many boxes, gets so much right and is so crammed with wholesome, effortless family friendly fabulousness that you’d likely be able to sleep for a hundred years and rest assured that few better pantos would pass by in the time.

Breathlessly camp and colourful with production value to spare and boasting standout turns from old favourites and fabulous new friends alike, as the Grand continue to carve their identity as a go-to home for top drawer festive entertainment, they once more strike perfect panto gold here with a true ‘Beauty’, indeed.