Aladdin

Saint Michaels ADS Pantomime this year was that ever popular story of Aladdin. With a script written by the talented young author Tom Sturgess and produced and directed by June Dowd, this was a very entertaining family Pantomime full of fun with lots of laughter and nice enjoyable performances from the cast. The cast included two young actors in the central roles of Aladdin and Princess Jasmine they were Lewis Evans and Georgette Moore who both acted and sang well together, making a very nice pantomime central romantic couple. Ian Field was a very good  comedic Widow Twankey and he was assisted very well in his comedy capers by Tom Sturgess who made an excellent energetic Wishee-Washee, he had a very good rapport with the audience with excellent comic timing, David Palin as the baddy Abanazar  was suitably evil and he certainly got plenty of boos from the audience, there were also two comedic performances from Alex Harvey as PC Ping and Ann Wasley as PC Pong they had good comic timing and they worked together very well making an excellent slapstick comedy duo. Debbie Jones as The Spirit of the Ring produced a very good down to earth northern comedic character in her role as did Dave Maloney who was a very blue Genie of the Lamp, they both gave very good performances in these important roles and there was a nice touch to the story as they were both ably assisted by two of the younger cast members as their apprentices, namely Hollie Jones, Apprentice to the Spirit of the Ring and Oscar Padgett Apprentice to the Genie. There were also important entertaining performances in the supporting roles, these included The Grand Vizier- Ruben Berger, The Emperor- Josh Cadman, So Hi- Rebel Moore and So Low -Cecelie Sarnec. The chorus and dancers which included various age groups appeared to be enjoying themselves very much putting lots of energy into their performance and supporting the principle cast well.

Generally, diction and clarity of words was very good meaning the story could be followed easily and there was a good choice of music and all solo’s and chorus numbers were accompanied excellently by Musical Director Don Hall.

Well done to the Stage Crew, Technical Crew, set builders and painters who along with colourful costumes added to the production. This was an enjoyable family pantomime and on the night I visited the audience were really involved in all the usual pantomime traditions, making lots of noise and appeared to be enjoying themselves immensely.

Congratulations to June Dowd and everyone involved in this production, thank you for inviting us we had a very enjoyable evening.

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