After last Christmas's biggest and most unfriendly giant in Belfast theatrical history, what on earth could director Derek Nicholl come up with this time around?
He has gone to the other extreme, straight to the hearts of the tinies, with three fluffy, pure white My Little Ponies, pulling Cinderella's fairy-lit carriage to the ball.
And speaking of balls, his other coup is to have secured the services of two inveterate and irrepressible entertainers - Tommy Cannon and Bobby Ball.
After 25 years at the top of the show-biz ladder, they really are the ultimate professionals, carrying the humour of this lavishly presented show, in the roles of the broker's men, sent to collect the debts gathered up over the years by Baron Hardup, Cinderella's invisible daddy.
Beside them, May McFetrdige has to work harder than she is used to, but still, every entrance, in an assortment of weird and wonderfully outrageous get-ups, has the audience on its toes and her off-the-line interventions are as sharp as ever.
The battle of the uglies between May's Baroness Hardup and Richard Pocock and William Elliott's gruesome sister is yet to get going and there is something lacking in the chemistry between Michelle Potter's Cinders and Jon Sheridon's politically correct Prince Charming.
Still, with the bold Bobby and Tommy running the show and an affable Fogwell Flax turning on the charm as Buttons, it all adds up to the kind of package we've now come to take for granted from the Opera House.
