GIANT laughs will fill the auditorium of the Cotswold Playhouse this month when the Cotswold Players present Roy Hudd’s pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk.

Roy Hudd first met local performer Graham Bill in Truro when Graham starred as Stinkwort in Hudd’s pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk. Twelve years later and Bill, an active member of the Cotswold Players since 1985, has been granted the honour of directing his pal's pantomime with a local cast of talented performers. What is more, Roy Hudd has himself updated the script for this new production.

“I first met Roy at Truro where we did Jack and the Beanstalk in 2001 with Wayne Sleep. The following year I returned with him to Truro, for his production of Aladdin starring Rick Wakeman. The following year we returned to Jack and the Beanstalk, but this time in Barnstaple, starring Wayne Sleep and Isla St Claire. After three years and three pantomimes, we knew each other quite well,” said director Graham Bill.

Roy Hudd OBE has a career which encompasses everything from stand-up comedy, pantomime, music hall, farce, film, musicals to the plays of Shakespeare, Stoppard and Cooney. Perhaps best-known for his long-running radio series The News Huddlines, the legendary performer has more recently been seen as the undertaker Archie Shuttleworth in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street.

This is the first time the Cotswold Players have presented a pantomime since 1998, when the company performed Cinderella. On that occasion in the leading role of Cinderella was young starlet, Claire Ritter - 16 years later and now Claire Howard she is still a member of the society and has claimed the title character, Jack.

Also cast in this giant pantomime adventure are Tristan Holland as the Dame, Darren Skinner as Stinkwort , Anne Martin as Fairy Lettuce, Penny Laker and Louise Alder as the Cow, Jeremy Keck as Baron, Molly Sedgewick-Taylor as Polly, Tom Gill as Ronnie, Vicki Shadbolt as Jill, Dan Clifford and Jennie Morrison-Smilth as the Giant together with a chorus of 10 children - Luna Aznal-Bowker, Nell Joyce-Venables, Ewan and Lara McEvoy, Sebastian Newton, Eloise Nixon-Malaure, Sophia Purves, Eliza Rogers, Naomi Spiers and Amelia West.

The Cotswold Players production of Jack and the Beanstalk, directed by Graham Bill, will run at the Cotswold Playhouse on Parliament Street, Stroud, from Wednesday, January 15 to January 18 and then from Wednesday, January 22 to January 25, with matinées on both Saturdays.

Tickets are available online at www.cotswoldplayhouse.co.uk/tickets