Think of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and what comes to mind? A horror story of a scientist drinking a potion and turning into an evil monster, not a colourful pantomime dame with a flair for puns and one-liners, writes Barbara Strachan.

But this was St Teath Drama Group's new version of Robert Louis Steven­son's classic tale. The scientist was still there, so was his alter-ego, Hyde, but in this version Hyde and his power-crazy ally, Matron, were determined take over control of Jekyll's hospital. Their attempts were foiled in time for the finale by a bumbling team of the dame, washerwoman, Lulu Lather, her practical-joker son, Jack and Jack's love interest, the intellectual Molly.

When newcomer Bob Fox joined the drama group this year he probably didn't foresee that he would not only be taking on the demanding role of the colourful Lulu but would also be adapting the script. This was a classic dame in true pantomime style, a larger than-life character (Bob is over six feet) with a penchant for policemen, especially Sheerluck Jones, a defective detective, played with aplomb by Jem Thorold.

Last year's director, Elaine Fell, returned to the stage as Dr Jekyll with John Dunstan as the evil Hyde. These are two experienced members of the group who handled the contrasting roles with competence and enthusiasm. Diminutive newcomer Natasha Golding faced a challenge as the matron with a desire-to-rule-the-world complex but she tackled it with efficiency.

Jack's ambition in life seemed to be to annoy and tease as many people as possible, and the role was admirably portrayed by Maria Gameson, while Tracey Leach was a suitably studious Molly. One of the comedy stars in this production was Dianne Potter as the totally inept burglar, A Burke, and strong support came from Rebecca Pedlar as hypochondriac Lanyon (actually Jekyll's colleague in the book), David Pierce as Sheerluck's policeman assistant, and Chloe Banks, Rosey Morrey and Jay Banks as the nurses and ghosts.

This was Jayne Stark's second pantomime in the director's chair, sharing the task with group chairman, David Jasper. This year the traditional type of scenery was replaced by computer-generated animated scenery controlled by technician Rod Keat. Lighting and sound were in the hands of Marc Hunt. In charge of props and curtains were Moyna Fox, Adrian Jasper, David Jasper and John Potter.