Our request for suggestions on what role PwC tax celebrity John Whiting should play in the firm’s panto has elicited some interesting responses.

The most humorous starts well by ignoring the fact that the play is Jack and the Beanstalk. We won’t say who sent it but if John wants to find out we suggest he ‘direct’ his attention to PwC’s public affairs department.

‘How about John playing the role of the Sheriff of Nottingham in this year’s PwC panto, but rather than the traditional robber baron portrayal he comes in the guise of the 21st century flat-tax incarnation, who works in co-operation with Robin Hood, from the Government Office for the Regions, in the Forest of Sherwood Enterprise Zone to help reduce poverty and unemployment through a series of centrally set but locally managed targets...’ TS can see the kids loving that one.