THEATRE 503, part of London's thriving fringe culture, has been planning an emergency panto since the early summer.

Their festive treat comes in the shape of The Fairytale Revolution: Wendy’s Awfully Big Adventure, a piece they presented last year with an all-female cast and creative team.
 
This year it’s livestreamed, allowing for some good old audience participation. It’s certainly a different take on Peter Pan.
 
In it, Peter Pan and the Lost Boyz might be up for another adventure, but the world needs a new hero. Wendy's had enough of cleaning up everyone else's mess and wants to take her story into her own hands.

She teams up with Captain Hook, who actually hates being a pirate, and sets out on a daring quest to change both their fates.
 
We’re promised groan-worthy puns, songs, cross-dressing and chaos. So, that Covid Christmas gloom? It’s behind you!

The local council’s involvement is helping to provide free tickets for schools, hospitals, care homes and low-income households and tickets are otherwise a tenner per video link, so the whole family can watch together. Runs until December 23, theatre503.com

A Christmas Carol with a recycling theme is on offer from Polka Theatre and screening from now until  December 27. It's a free short film using cardboard and materials from the huge waste generated over the Christmas period  — wrapping paper, fairy lights, ribbons, bows, bubble wrap and baubles.

You'll travel through cardboard city streets, meet the origami ghost of Christmas Past, the wrapping-paper ghost of Christmas Present and the ghost of Christmas Future, with a “touch of tinsel.”
 
VocalEyes, who do great work in making the arts accessible for blind and visually impaired people, provide an audio description, polkatheatre.com.
 
On a more traditional note, the Dickens Theatre Company once again take the Christmas biscuit with their production of A Christmas Carol.

It's a two-hander, with Louise Faulkner and Ryan Philpott, who'd also adapted the piece directed by Eric Richard. It moves at a cracking speed, yet still has breathing space for the awful melancholy of loneliness and the grim reality of poverty.
 
“The themes of child exploitation, grooming, poverty, domestic violence and class divide are desperately relevant to a modern audience. These stories need to be told,” says Philpott.
 
Christmas Carol will be free over the holiday week, on a digital platform the company has set up. This and other productions will also be on subscription and for schools to license. Details: dickenstheatre.vhx.tv

There are pantos aplenty online, with some helpful websites to search at pantolive.com and bigpantoguide.co.uk