OPENING this week, the Cotswold Players are to stage another production from the pen of local playwright Pip Royall.

This time Pip will present a unique pantomime experience designed for family entertainment.

Stoaf and the Amazing Ice Cream Adventure! is a newly created original fairy tale in which the hero Stoaf, together with his dog, Diddums, races through a strange realm to help rescue a queen trapped inside a magic spell.

There are talking teapots, dancing sugar-bowls and, of course, a wicked witch.

In keeping with the seasonal spirit, Pip has drafted in members of his family.

His brother Geoff, a cartoonist who has had work published in Private Eye under the signature GF, helped create the story and provided wonderful visual images to spark off the writing.

Geoff has also written songs for the show, and in this was helped by another family member, their niece Ruth Royall.

Ruth was asked to add music and lyrics to create a rap song that the children in the show could sing.

Ruth is a singer and songwriter, who fronted the Stroud band Subjustice as a teenager, and now lives n Bristol.

The final member of the Royall family is Pip’s sister Helen, well known to many in Stroud for her various roles as an administrator of Green events and Transition Stroud, who has taken on the role of stage manager.

In truth, then, this panto could be said to be by Royall appointment.

Stoaf is at the Cotswold Playhouse, January 21-24, and January 28-30. cotswoldplayhouse.co.uk