Panto Limbo: Alternative Christmas Theatre in the Northwest

'He's behind you.' Men dressed as women. Being whacked in the face by a Vimto lolly chucked from the stage. For Brits, pantomime is an annual ritual – and even the smaller towns don't miss out on a star name to attract audiences to their iteration of Jack and the Beanstalk/Cinderella/Dick Whittington. However, away from some shows' £90 family tickets and boisterous, sugar-fuelled ten-year-olds, there are alternative festive stage shows.

Wanted! Robin Hood is one of them. Produced by the Library Theatre Company at The Lowry, Salford, it's a magical retelling of the tale by playwright Charles Way. Director Amy Leach and designer Hayley Grindle – who were also responsible for Arabian Nights, the Library's sumptuous 2012 Christmas production – are the creative team behind the show. “What makes this different to other Christmas shows is it has this epic, giant, heightened feel to it,” says Leach, taking a break from rehearsals, her voice crackling with enthusiasm. “We've been talking a lot about Shakespearean plays during rehearsals, and it's a bit like a mash-up of Henry V and A Midsummer Night's Dream.” Festive theatre inspired by the Bard? “It's dark, powerful, romantic and moving,” she says.

Another alternative is Zagmuth, a family show by Take A Hint at Liverpool's Lantern Theatre, in which a young girl discovers the magic of Christmas. Rock'n'roll panto Aladdin, meanwhile, returns to Liverpool Playhouse, full of singing and hip-shaking, and Lancaster Grand concentrate on the over-16s with After Dark Entertainment's Cinderella, a pantomime for grown-ups. After Dark have been staging adult pantos at the theatre for six sell-out seasons. In Manchester, Contact Young Actors Company stage Advent Avenue, which director Paul Mayers describes as exploring the darker aspects of the festive period. "Everyone has a different version of Christmas. Some people feel lonely, some still feel the magic of it, some maybe feel that they return to being a child when they go and see their families," he says.

Just as an evening at the panto is a yearly must for many families, for many theatres it's the few weeks of the year when Mother Goose lays the golden egg, as the takings can pay for an entire season – and there are many big commercial productions on offer. Manchester's Opera House has Dick Whittington, a stray-to-superstar tale with Ashleigh and Pudsey off Britain's Got Talent; Ray Quinn – off The X Factor – stars in the lead role for Peter Pan at Liverpool Empire; and a touring arena version of Peter Pan visiting the Northwest stars Stacey Solomon off the Iceland adverts as Tinker Bell (except Stacey's been forced to pull out of the Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle shows. But it should still be an epic aerial spectacular, with an epic price tag – tickets start at £20).

Are there challenges to staging original work at Christmas, especially when competing with many Syco-approved commercial productions? Leach believes there's enough space for both, but concedes there are obstacles. “I try to avoid casting known faces because I think it can sometimes draw attention from the story. I want everybody to believe in that world, that story that we're telling,” she says. “We've tried to make sure our version [of Robin Hood] appeals to what people think they're going to see but also pushes them into rediscovering the story afresh, so they don't think, 'Oh, we might as well have just stayed at home and watched the Kevin Costner DVD.'”