Is it too early to declare the game over? Can a winner really be announced, and the prize chocolates hurled out, by 6 December? It's hard, though, to see anyone, not even Stephen Fry and his "posh panto" chums at the Old Vic, bettering this utterly delightful confection from writer/director Susie McKenna.

I would tweak just one thing. Panto needs above all to be crisp and swift, yet the first half, with its Lord of the Rings-esque false endings, trails into bagginess. Gandalf didn't seem to mind, however, as Sir Ian McKellen, on a rare night off from King Lear, chuckled loudly throughout. So heartily did he appreciate the singalong that he was on his feet, joining in the actions to the Cool Cat Chat.

No wonder, as the energy and enthusiasm here is deliciously infectious. It's a treat to hear a live band of five musicians strike up proudly, and it's even more of a boon that Clive Rowe is back once more as the Dame, as his Sarah the Cook is the centrepiece around which the rest of the banquet is laid. He sings, he dances surprisingly nimbly for a big man and, best of all, he looks as though two shows a day until 12 January is as good as it's ever going to get.

Each change of Rowe's successively more outrageous outfits has us squealing with pleasure, and how pleasing it is to see tradition maintained, with all costumes cut from ferociously synthetic fabrics. One carelessly stubbed cigarette and the entire London Borough of Hackney would be ablaze. The wonderful Tameka Empson, as kindly trainee Fairy Bowbells, is a particular vision of gold sparkliness right from the start when, in typically playful McKenna fashion, she flies on looking like Mary Poppins and singing the Rihanna song Umbrella.

There's too much left to praise: Hannah-Jane Fox's thigh-slapping Dick, a marvellously terrifying great ape that appears after the shipwreck on Monkey Island, Mike Denman's impressively agile Puss. McKenna, in short, knows the secret recipe for panto perfection. Oh yes she does.

• Until 12 January (020 8985 2424, www.hackneyempire.co.uk).