THIS will be a pantomime season with a difference at the Grand Opera House. After endless bleak winters of Simon Barry’s ironically named New Pantomime Productions shows, there is a new pro ducer in town, Three Bears Productions, whose flyers for Aladdin carry the tagline A Wish Come True!

A wish has indeed come true with the changing of the pantomime guard that not only promises “York’s biggest ever panto” but also a “spectacular 3D pantomime”.

The triumvirate behind Three Bears Productions and Aladdin are the vastly experienced man of the theatre Chris Moreno, a producer, writer and old-school theatre manager who once ran the Opera House; regular pantomime star Stuart Wade, who will direct the show as well as play silly-billy Wishee Washee; and Scooch singer Russ Spencer, who focuses on producing the show after appearing in the past two pantomimes.

Already the Three Bears have run the pantomime launch with Moreno, Wade and his fellow performers, dancer Debbie McGee, former Emmerdale soap star Frazer Hines, Nick Jr’s Carl Tracey and Hear’Say singer and Dancing On Ice winner Suzanne Shaw, in attendance. They will be joined in Aladdin by The Chase’s brainy chaser and comedian Paul Sinha in his pantomime debut as Abanazar – once a Sinha, always a sinner – and Chris Wickenden’s dame, Widow Twankey.

For Stuart Wade, this is the chance to move the Grand Opera House pantomimes through the gears after many years of loyalty to Simon Barry as his York right-hand man, leading the cast and orchestrating the early rehearsals.

Last year, he even switched unselfishly to the dame’s role of Tilly Trott to freshen up Jack And The Beanstalk. “But this year – back by unpopular demand! – I’m going to be playing Wishee Washee and it feels good to be back in a familiar role after trying out the frocks last time,” says Yorkshireman Stuart. “It’s a favourite role that’s just a chance to be silly.”

Playing to strengths but re-invigorating the Opera House pantomime will be the key to improving it. “We are drawing on the experience of Chris and Russ and pooling our talents to find the way of working where all of our skills sets complement each other,” says Stuart.

Aladdin will not, however, be a radical departure from the Simon Barry shows. “I was always aware that in the transition from New Pantomime Productions to Three Bears Productions, if you tried to change everything at once, you could lose some of your audience, so familiarity helps balancing the old with the new. That’s why there’ll be familiar elements, myself included.

“We have to get the message across that we’re new – we want people to be aware of that – but we also want them to know that in many respects it’s not too dissimilar and it’s still very much geared towards families, as I’m a big believer in pan- tomime often being the first piece of theatre that children see.

"But there’ll also be more things thrown in for adults as you have to realise that audiences change over the years.”

York Press:

Carl Tracey, Suzanne Shaw and a scene-stealing Elephant at the Grand Opera House pantomime launch. Picture: David Harrison 

Significant changes are on their way, nevertheless: better sets, better costumes, a newly written script by Chris Moreno specifically attuned to the York audience, and “a different approach to the music”, says Stuart.

“We’ll be bringing our experience as producers to improve the way the songs are used,” he explains. “It’s easy to put in a song just for the sake of having a song, but essentially these shows are a musical and there has to be a reason for a song to be there, like there is in a musical, with songs in different styles to suit the story, rather than just having toe-tapping songs.”

Impressed by the spectacular use of 3D in Billy Pearce’s pantomimes at the Bradford Alhambra, Stuart is seeking to bring the “wow factor” to the Opera House pantomime to emphasise the distinctive joys of coming to a theatre show.

“The thing I’m most excited about is that we’ll have 3D effects,” he says. “It was just a question of finding the right company to work with. Most 3D is pre-set, when the actors have to be positioned in certain spots, but our 3D is the next generation of 3D where it adapts to the action.”

As for the script, for so long the weak link in the Opera House pantomime, it will be a key element of the new age of pantomime at the Opera House. “You can strip away the names and the special effects, but a pantomime starts with the story and if the story is told well, everything else is better too,” says Stuart.

“The writing will be dealt with predominantly by Chris Moreno, who has 200 scripts to his name, and one of the tricks to the success of his pantomimes has been to play to the strengths of the cast, while being aware of current affairs and keeping the story at the core. He’ll write four drafts before it comes into my hands and then we can tweak it in rehearsals. I have every confidence in his skills to give us a really good script.” Hallelujah!

Three Bears Productions’s debut York pantomime, Aladdin, will run at the Grand Opera House from December 9 to January 1, 2017.Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york