There's a feeling in the panto-sphere this year that familiarity with a story might breed boredom in some young audiences.

If Jonathan Stone, director/producer on the Adam Smith panto, had any such concerns, this robustly Scottish take on Cinderella – scripted by the ever-resourceful Alan McHugh – must have cheered him up no end.

McHugh does more than fling in a few tartan-clad references. Here it's not Cinders whose family is aristocratic but skint, it's her future sweetheart Rory whose father, the martinet Laird, is determined the lad must marry money. Enter Cinderella's vulgar loud-mouthed step-sisters, two self-styled heiresses from... Essex.

The posturing and screeching awfulness of Ream (Sarah McCardie) and Jel (Gayle Telfer Stevens) prompted ear-splitting cat-calling and boo-ing. Ofpants, the official panto watchdog, had reservations: boo-ing bullying and wickedness, whatever its accent is traditional, but the hint of anti-English fervour both onstage and in the audience really has nothing to do with any panto conflict between good and evil. If the TOWIE card was overplayed, Ofpants had nothing but praise for Billy Mack's frisky-flirty Dame who turns out to be magic, as well as a bundle of fun. The Laird (Graham Crammond) was also a treat, unbending in the heat of the Dame's determined advances. As for Cinders (Karen Fishwick), once she stopped jumping to wrong conclusions, she discovered that Rory (Andrew Keay) was the man of her dreams. With singalong Proclaimers choruses, a clever set and a well-engineered touch of the supernatural, an old tale proved far from tired – it was Saltired instead.

HHH