CHRIS GRAY finds the audience making a comic contribution to Dick Whittington at Milton Keynes Theatre

Pantomime fun precedes the start of the action at Milton Keynes’s colourful and musical production of Dick Whittington which – in a longer than usual run – carries on its merry way till January 15.

As at last year’s show at this venue, a video camera sweeps members of the audience as they settle in their seats. Suitable targets having been found, their images are projected on to a huge screen with appropriate speech bubbles beside them.

“I did my hair before going out,” goes up next to a bald man, and his message continues, “but I left it at home.”

“I’m wearing Prada,” ‘says’ one young lady. “I’m in Primark,” says her companion.

The distinction in class drawn here is reflected, as it happens, in the drama we will go on to watch, in which the snooty Queen Rat from Samantha Womack contrasts tellingly with Essex girl Stacey Solomon as the chavvy, though good sort, Fairy Bowbells.

The pair spar away nicely at each other throughout the evening, though it hardly needs saying who is going to end on the winning side.

My mention of a Queen rather than a King Rat makes clear that the version of Dick Whittington from First Family Entertainment is not altogether in traditional style.

Another change from the usual given us by writer Eric Potts is that Alderman Fitzwarren is not the father to, but the brother of, the lovely Alice Fitzwarren (Hannah Ponting) whom Dick falls in love with at first sight.

This was a necessary alteration, I guess, following the casting of Marc Pickering, who also gives us the Sultan of Morocco. He certainly doesn’t look old enough to have a grown-up daughter.

But in most respects, this is Dick Whittington as we know and love it, with a handsome hero in Chris Jenkins’s Dick and a winsome feline companion for him in Tommy the Cat (Sophie Hart).

There is, of course, a pantomime dame in the shape of Sarah the Cook, who is delivered with a relishable flourish, and some outrageous attire, by Kevin Brewis.

To her son, Idle Jack, falls the equally important duty of becoming best friends with the audience. Comedian Kev Orkian rises brilliantly to the task, with a great rapport established the moment he arrives.

His interviews on stage with junior members of the audience towards the end of the evening are splendidly handled, making what can sometimes be a bit of an embarrassment into a highlight of he show.

Since we are equipped, with 3D film specs on the way into the auditorium, it is clear there is to be a special visual treat.

This comes in a gripping underwater adventure among looming creatures of the deep, after the shipwreck of the Fitzwarren argosy.

In the capable hands of director Russell Labey and with musical direction by Barry Robinson, the show is highly recommended.

For tickets call 0844 871 7652 or go to atgtickets.com/miltonkeynes