Oh, no they didn't

To the Theatre Royal Stratford East for this year's panto and a surprisingly postmodern twist to the familiar tale of Dick Whittington.

There are certain things you can pretty much take for granted in the average panto: rotten jokes, audience participation, sweets thrown into the audience, plenty of singing and dancing and the triumph of good over evil.

Oh yes. and the boy usually gets the girl, except this time - he didn't.

Dick had saved her life, now he asked for her hand in marriage.

A happy ending was clearly  looming..... except she turned to Dick, and the girl said though she liked him very much, she wasn't thinking of getting married at the present time and in any case she had other things she wanted to do with her life.

(Fortunately Dick still had the cat).