Panto is again massively popular in Glasgow this year. But are the storylines and characters still appropriate for the modern age?

Brian Beacom peeks beneath the panto curtain to find out.

WE ARE all loving panto at the moment, in which dames and dimwits and princesses and wicked stepmothers are doing their best to send us home in stitches.

And for most children, panto is their very first experience of theatre.

But when you break down the storylines, isn’t there a very real chance that those malleable little minds are being rather misshaped?

Take the most successful panto of all, Cinderella. This French fairy story first released in 1721 is still all about landing a man.

And while the central character Cinders masquerades as a very helpful and co-operative young lady, isn’t she simply a loose-slippered, Prince-chasing WAG wannabe?

The overall theme of Cinderella is worrying; once a woman meets her prince, all will be happy ever after.

The reality is marriages last, on average, 11 years, and Cinders will one day (at best) be headed for counselling.

But marry a man for status and Saturday nights in middle-age will be spent on Tinder.

The Jack and The Beanstalk tale too suggests problems. Jack is essentially a housebreaker, the beanstalk his ladder.

And even though he’s a bit dim in trading a decent piece of livestock for some beans, when Jack chops down the beanstalk he’s facing a manslaughter charge.

Aladdin, an early 18th century story, isn’t exactly someone kids should aspire to become either.

He’s also a greedy opportunist who sees the Genie as his Lord Sugar. Why should he have great wealth just because he wants it so badly?

Mother Goose, on the other hand, is a two hundred year-old version of the modern-day desperation for fake breasts and Botox. It’s about selling your soul for a double-page spread in Hello!

Snow White too is about rampant vanity, the Wicked Queen a woman who will stop at nothing to defy the ageing process.

But SW herself is very worrying; a rather vapid creature who goes wandering in the woods with a mad axeman and then decides her safety lies with seven little blokes who subject her to a servile position.

You wonder if audiences think she’s channelling Dumbo, given the number of times she’s duped.

And when the Wicked Queen is humiliated, Snow has her killed or banished). Shouldn’t she be sending her ma for analysis, helping her work through her jealousy issues? Is Snow White turning into her ma?

Sleeping Beauty however seems to be about teaching kids to be stupid. Think about it; the parents know she could die if she pricks her finger, but rather than teach her to avoid one, they simply hide every spindle in the land.

It’s like taking every plug socket out of the walls. You have to introduce kids to sockets and warn of sticking a little finger in there.

But let’s bring down the curtain on the cynicism and reveal why panto should be made compulsory for kids.

Cinderella is actually a below-minimum-wage female suffering an abusive relationship who's lost her birth mother and had to deal with outrageous family dysfunctionality.

And far from being a wannabe WAG, the truth is in modern pantos we learn she fell for the Prince-thinking he was as sink-estate as she was.

As for Jack and the Beanstalk? When you boil it down, the Giant was a slum landlord, ripping off the villagers. He also eats children, which could be metaphor suggesting stranger danger?

Jack himself deserves some slack; he’s an only child, which throws up some issues, and the cow/milk crisis in his life could be an allegory representing the modern-day greed of the supermarkets who squeeze the milk famers dry.

Aladdin also has a great message to send out, which kids will pick up on. His love, Princess Jasmine, is very much a modern-day woman who does not like the idea of arranged marriage at all.

But the most important message to come out of Aladdin? Be careful what you wish for.

And Mother Goose? This is an incredible tale about the shallowness of looks, that it’s inner beauty which counts. And Gok Wan couldn’t have sold it better.

Sleeping Beauty also has her positive messages to put across. It’s a panto that’s all about waiting. Romance isn’t all about a quick fumble. It’s good to wait. Okay 100 years is asking quite a lot, but . . .

Snow White is also a great morality tale. It tells the world if you turn into Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond and delude yourself you’re still twenty five you end up in an institution.

There’s no doubt panto still does its job. It tells traditional stories but they have a value system built in which always links itself to modern times. These are stories so strong they keep kids, of all ages, on the right lines.

Just as importantly, they’re love stories, they are about giving love and falling in love. And how can that notion ever be wrong?