Having given us two Christmases of Sir Ian McKellen's well-frocked Widow Twankey, the Old Vic takes another step in the direction of Gay Pantomime with Stephen Fry's eagerly anticipated retelling of Cinderella.

In theatre as in life, though, anticipation turns out much more satisfying than rude reality. So it proves in Fry's dullish, modestly amusing and rather laborious retelling of the ancient fairytale, for which he has written unamusing lyrics for 10 songs to Anne Dudley's unmemorable music: "Oh will I ever see that very special he?" to take a typical example, makes the Cliff Richard songbook sound adventurous.

The best and serious novelty in this somewhat old-fashioned Cinderella is the emergence of Paul Keating's lovelorn Buttons as a half-open, gay young man, into dress design and domesticity, who forever teeters on the verge of coming out to Madeleine Worrall's sexually unsophisticated, not very passionate Cinderella.

In the panto's best, humorous moments they both sing and dream of a tall, dark stranger. The pair of them pursue parallel romances, when they manage to escape slaving in the basement kitchen where two, white puppet mice threaten to steal the limelight.

Joseph Millson's handsome Prince succumbs to love at first sight when he glimpses Cinderella at a ball to choose the Prince's wife. Meanwhile Oliver Chopping's Dandini, the Prince's aide de camp gazes transfixed at Keating's wistful Buttons and after a little mutual admiration ends up kneeling - quite respectably - asking for his hand, presumably in a civil partnership.

Interestingly a vociferous audience, with plenty of pre-teenagers in it, reacted to Buttons's gay longings with sounds of sympathy.

Fry's other invention comes in the shape of Sandi Toksvig who supplies a little lesbian, cross-dressing amusement as the narrator.

Modestly moustachioed, dressed in trousers and smoking jacket she sits suspended above the action in an armchair and gruffly speaks the author's jaded, unsparkling narrative. Stephen Fry and wit are supposed to be long-term companions, but it now looks and sounds as if they are undergoing a trial separation, with Fry the bereft party.

Some of the actors, though not Mark Lockyer and Hal Fowler as masculine, strutting and not very sexy ugly sisters, are saddled with a heavy-fisted armoury of innuendos and double entendres. These left me suffering from slightly indecent-exposure.

Those allusions to buttocks and, I think, vibrators, that sly, typical retort "You certainly know how to hold your balls" were neither funny nor to the point. The odd flash of learning struck incongruous notes too. "According to Plato happiness is contingent upon virtue," Buttons unbelievably remarks.

The intermittent virtues of Fiona Laird's slick production have to do with its appeal to kids - clever audience involvement and the odd, surprising flash of spectacle. Stephen Brimson Lewis's design offers a small pumpkin which magically expands into a vehicle.

Pauline Collins's cockney fairy godmother, who has a successful shot at flying, manages a bit of magic. A fairytale kitchen gives way to a down-at-heel, cardboard-wonder of a palace. Song and dance joviality reign supreme, but this is Fry well under par.