Aladdin

Chorley Amateur Dramatic & Operatic Society’s production of Aladdin written by the talented Paul Carr and directed by Andy Burke and Steve Catterall was a good entertaining innovative yet traditional pantomime with plenty of comedy and the usual characters we all expect to see. With good sound, lighting, excellent scenery, colourful well thought out costumes and a talented cast this was a very enjoyable pantomime. There was a good performance from Steph Threlfall as a cheeky Aladdin and Scarlett Gorman as Princess Willow who complimented Steph very well making a good central pantomime romantic couple. Rob Armstrong as Abanaser was not only wicked he also introduced some comedy into his portrayal which seemed to go down well with the audience. Andy Burke as Widow Twankey showed off his good comic timing and he was more than ably assisted in his comedy exploits by Steven Cartterall as Wishie, Twankey’s other son and Aladdin’s brother, they made a good team and had a good rapport with the audience. There were also nice performances from Barry Callander as the Emperor and Charli Bradbury as So-Shy the Princess’s handmaiden. Kira Brookfield as wing and Laina Marie Grimshaw Brown as Wong, made an excellent comedy duo and both also had a good rapport with the audience which is very important in these type of roles. However, the star of the show has to be the wonderful puppet Genie superbly worked and vocalised by Ashley Hambrook in the style of the show Avenue Q, and he was more than ably assisted by Ceire Edge. A number of the audience were rather surprised when a puppet popped up from behind a rock but they appeared to really enjoy this innovative piece of theatre. Other enjoyable moments were a flying carpet ride with back projection film, dancing skeletons and the take on the 12 days of Christmas instead of the community song which was hilarious. The chorus of junior and senior dancers worked with lots of enthusiasm and energy and performed the excellent choreography by Rebecca Dickinson superbly. Musically the cast were accompanied by backing tracks but it was a little hard to hear some of the singing at times and there was the occasional tuning problem. However, the success of any pantomime can be measured by the reaction of the audience and there was no shortage of audience participation at this production.

Congratulations to Paul Carr for a well written script and well done to Andy Burke and Steven Catterall for bringing to the stage this very entertaining production, thank you for inviting us we had a very enjoyable time.

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