“WELCOME Home” read the banner on the first of Mark Walters’ gorgeously glittering designs to mark the Theatre Royal pantomime’s return to HQ after a gap year on the rails in a tent at the National Railway Museum.

At Friday’s press night it turned out to be a welcome home to Martin Barrass too. He emerged unannounced from behind a cardboard cut-out of himself to take a standing ovation late on in the second half after his remarkable recovery from a motorcycle crash that left him in an induced coma for five days in September.

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Martin Barrass: cameo appearance on press night after recovery from motorcycle crash

He joined the company once more for the walk-down finale, and his recuperation should hopefully be completed by his participation in the Hull Truck and Royal Shakespeare Company co-production of Richard Bean’s new English Civil War drama, The Hypocrite, from February as part of Hull’s City of Culture year.

Barrass, whose heart had stopped for five minutes, will be back in next Christmas’s pantomime. Meanwhile, perennial dame Berwick Kaler had had his own heart scare only three weeks before his panto sidekick’s crash, suffering a blockage that required the fitting of a pacemaker...and now makes plenty of references to this new addition to his body in his pantomime script.

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Berwick Kaler in dame mode before his transformation to the ugly sisterhood. Picture: Anthony Robling

Sensibly and entirely understandably, 70-year-old Dame Berwick gives a more physically conservative performance in his 38th panto: no aerial antics in a hoist this year and orchestrating the water slapstick scene with A J Powell as his hapless stooge, rather than taking a dip himself, although he still enjoys an early scrap with Powell inside a tent (for sale from last year’s show).

Furthermore, he pops up as an unexpected extra character in a woodland-dwelling cameo and his switch from his traditional yellow and red boot laces to blue for one scene is typical of Walters’ flair for design detail.

The luvverly Brummie Powell has moved up one in the cast order to take Barrass’s place as Ugly Sister Priscilla to Kaler’s “younger” Ugly Sister Hernia, Priscilla’s name presumably being a nod to Powell’s drag-act glamour recalling The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert.

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Having a ball in Cinderella: Charleigh Webb (as Charleigh), left, Harry Hughes (as Buttons), Scott Wallace (as The Newcomer), Hermione Lynch (as Prince Charming), Jake Lindsay (as Dimdini), Danielle Mullan (as Fairy Godmother), Jack Lansbury (as Prince’s Equerry) and Lauren Newton (as Lauren). Picture: Anthony Robling

Pocklington’s very own Harry Hughes slips comfortably into his new role as innocent, slow-on-the-uptake Buttons and Hermione Lynch’s Prince Charming, Danielle Mullan’s north-eastern Fairy Godmother and Jack Lansbury’s Princes Equerry all revel in their upgrades on past years.

In particular, Jake Lindsay makes big strides as Dimdini, especially when leading I’m Worth It, the high point of Grace Harrington’s polished choreography.

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Suzy Cooper's Cinderella and Harry Hughes's Buttons and the Young People’s Team as The Mice in Cinderella. Picture: Anthony Robling

In the knowing, in-joke way of the Theatre Royal pantomime, Suzy Cooper plays up amusingly on being “the middle-aged actress” cast as a “hot” Cinderella and delivers the goods both leading an early tap-and-cane routine and when having fun with a tree-chopping chainsaw.

Just as there is no traditional dame’s role in Cinderella, so David Leonard must reinvent himself in the absence of a male villain.

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Young Cinderella with David Leonard's Baroness von Naff. Picture: Anthony Robling

Step forward Baroness Von Naff, a kind of cross between Cruella De Vil, Eddie Izzard and Leonard’s own demonic Miss Trunchbull in Roald Dahl’s Matilda in the West End. Mark Walters has given him fabulous costumes and a Dolly Parton chest, and Leonard, in high-heeled boots, fishnets and even bloomers at one point, is magnificent throughout. His high-kicking music-hall routine with Powell and Kaler in Got To Get A Gimmick! is the show’s piece de resistance.

Rob Castell makes an impressive debut as musical director; Luke James, from the stage crew, pops out for a couple of one-liners as a curmudgeonly cuckoo clock; Pokémon, Trump and Brexit are the topical references from this divisive year; and Harry Gration takes his annual film turn to newly camp heights.

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Getting ugly as AJ Powell's Priscilla, Berwick Kaler's Hernia and David Leonard's Baroness von Naff pick on Suzy Cooper's Cinderella. Picture: Anthony Robling

Look out too for a spoof of one of the YouTube hits of 2016, James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke. For the uninitiated, it will make a whole lot more sense if you you seek out Cordon’s videos first.

Cinderella is not Berwick Kaler’s favourite pantomime but even allowing for Martin Barrass’s absence and Kaler’s more reined-in turn, this is a Theatre Royal Cinderella that has a ball under Damian Cruden’s expertly-drilled directorship.

Cinderella, York Theatre Royal, until January 28. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk