Aladdin

This is the last pantomime of the current season and Merlin can always be relied upon to produce a good show.  Firstly, may I say how impressive the scenery was, there had obviously been a lot of creative thought in the design and the execution of that design was impressive.

The cast is a nice mix of adults, young adults and children and they all worked very hard to perform this show.  Jeremy Battersby (Abanazer) is a consummate performer and he has a brilliant talent for working the audience and getting them to respond.  It isn’t as easy as it looks but the same talent is also shared by Oliver Gafga (Wishee Washee).  Oliver displayed an excellent presence on stage and produced a characterisation that was one of the best.  Lisa Bolton played Aladdin as a strong character, not what I expected but it still worked well in the show.  Ami Roberts was delightful as Princess Lotus-Flower.

Emma Newman (Slave of the Ring) and Steph Bassett (Genie of the Lamp) both produced delightful and good performances.    Melissa Barracloth and Sue Newman played the two policemen (PCs Stoppa and Coppa) with great effect and to the delight of the audience.  The Principals cast was completed by Malcolm Scott (Widow Twankey) Stuart Reynolds (Emperor of China) and Melissa Crisp (So Shy).

I must mention the dancers and chorus, firstly the dancers who produced some excellent performances, well drilled and clearly accomplished dancers all.  Shame that only two of them had happy faces, smiling throughout, the other two didn’t smile once.  If I say one thing to panto performers, especially dancers, it is that a smile can work miracles on the audience.  Similarly, with the chorus, some had excellent and expressive faces throughout, some seemed to find the whole thing a bit of a trial.  The children were excellent, but then they usually are when they are having fun, which they clearly were!

I have already mentioned the impressive scenery and the concept of the flying carpet was good.  It’s just a shame that it was shown against a decorated cloth as it was obvious how it was done.  I would have thought it would have been better done against a black cloth so the machinery used was not so obvious.   The costumes were beautiful, plenty of changes and nicely presented.  I liked the lighting and sound treatments and the accompaniment was good without being intrusive.  Finally, my compliments and a huge ‘well done’ to the backstage crew, who must have been working their socks off to get the scene changes done in time.

This venue is not ideal from an audience point of view as the constant ‘toilet runs’ required the audience members to walk along in front of the stage, distracting the rest of us from the performance.   Well done to the cast for largely ignoring them, even when they got perilously close!  However, it also allowed us to see a number of the audience leaving before the end of the show, I was not surprised as it was nearly two and a half hours long with the interval.  I have said this before, that is just too long for a show where the audience is largely children.  Tempting though it is to include everything, sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and cut stuff from the show to bring the running time down to a manageable 40 minutes for each half.

Overall a fitting end to this year’s panto season, well done to everyone involved in the production.

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