'Arthur' a pageant of panto-pizzazz

People's Light & Theatre's annual pantos are a much-loved holiday musical tradition, owing in no small part to Peter Pryor's presence as a frequent director and Michael Ogborn's (Baby Case, Box Office of the Damned) as composer and lyricist. These are serious artists creating ridiculous spectacles, and while they're always charming, some years they hew closer to the centuries-old panto tradition than others.

This is not one of those years. Much as their fabulous multiple Barrymore-winning Cinderella visited vaudeville for inspiration, Arthur and the Tale of the Red Dragon: A Musical Panto turns to puppetry, employing Philly's puppeteer emeritus, Robert Smythe, in the creation of an elemental and inventive dragon manipulated by two people, plus shadow and rod puppets.

Joining the regulars - Tom Teti, Susan McKey, and Mark Lazar as the outsized, glorious Dame (here, he's Nessie, the Dame of the Lake) - are a who's who of some of the city's most exciting talent. John Jarboe and Mary Tuomanen, of the devised theater company Applied Mechanics and the Bearded Ladies cabaret corps, don a goat's beard and walrus mustache respectively, as both bumbling knights and dragon operators. Haas Award-winner Liz Filios plays multiple roles, as does Jake Blouch, always a reliable performer, exercising his comic skills as a Castilian burro styled after Antonio Banderas' Puss in Boots. Others - Alex Bechtel's brawn-over-brains Prince Kay, Mark LeVasseur's jumpy stag Isaac, Jon Mulhearn's earnest Arthur, and Christopher Patrick Mullen's befuddled Merlyn - contribute to the questing mayhem.

Kim Carson, who last played innocent Ella, this time becomes Maleficent-aspirant Morgana Le Fay, a villain with va-va-voom style and a musical dungeon scene that Monty Python's grail-hunters might envy (theme song: "Torture Is a Girl's Best Friend"). Marie Anne Chiment's costumes get some of the credit for highlighting Carson's physical assets and glitzing up our water-dwelling Dame in dazzling aqua sparkles, and McKey's flouncy, goggled getup as Merlyn's owl Archimedes is laugh-out- loud silly. James F. Pyne's set, from its smoke-breathing proscenium to a stage-wide underwater tableau, adds another layer of depth to all the visual wonders.

Though not all these actors can carry a tune tunefully, between Samantha Bellomo's book, which references pop-cultural quests both parents and children can enjoy, Ryan Touhey's jaunty, tireless musical direction, and everything and everyone else, it hardly matters. Pantos exist to ensure a raucous, rowdy, family-friendly good time, and this one will win over even the most reluctant, too-cool kids (or their grownups).

Arthur and the Tale of the Red Dragon: A Musical Panto

Through Jan. 11 at People's Light & Theatre Company, 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern.

Tickets: $40-$60; youths (17 & under) $35-$55.

Information: 610-647-1900 or www.peopleslight.org.