Aladdin

Here we had a family orientated pantomime, for cast and audience, and undoubtedly a good mixture of experience and youth. Widow Twankey is one of the best pantomime dame roles going, and here we had the superb stage craft of Nick Bird in this pivotal role as he brought every inch of his long and varied stage experience into play. It is the little asides and facial contortions, even eyebrow raising, that convey the nuances of the traditional male playing an outrageous character that amuse and engage with an audience, and here we have it in spades, not an easy thing to achieve, but Nick is a superb craftsman. However he had to be at the top of his game to ‘compete’ with the energetic and equally adept performance from Ryan Standing as Wishee Washee (age 15). Seldom have I seen such confidence  and competence from such a young performer as he interacted magnificently with the audience showing stage craft and quick witted repartee as he became the ‘friend’ of all the youngsters in the audience, and their parents and grandparents! He never flagged and will I am sure find a path to follow in his ambition to become an established comedic actor!

Now clearly the Aladdin Panto has many characters to savour, not least Aladdin himself (Jack Jarvis) and here we had a confident and endearing performance from another rising star, he excelled as Angel in Dereham’s recent production of ‘Rent’, and here showed excellent stage presence and movement as he followed his desires to marry the attractive and no doubt ever so slightly forward but regal Princess Jasmin (ClaraBelle Whitehead). They had some difficult duets and songs to negotiate but made a believable couple truly in love. Of course the path of true love is blighted by the intervention of the evil ‘best baddy’ in panto, ’old ave a banana’  Abanaza (Paul Woodhouse)): now I understand that this was a late change, and as show director was a forced casting. No matter, seizing the opportunity to show how to play a real baddy, he opened the show with a dramatic and frightening delivery, with a loud ‘Shazam’,and threats of dire deeds to come, relishing the boos and hisses from the audience on his every entrance. I do not normally recommend a director to take on a leading role as it can diminish the ability to have an objective view of the overall production, clearly here there was no diminution!

He, of course, is chasing the lamp with the power to enable him to become Ruler of the Universe via the wishes delivered by the genie of the Lamp (Laura Marvell-James): now we have come to expect a male Genie, but we were prepared to trade this for a commanding and vocally outstanding performance as, right on cue, she was commanded to appear to whosoever owned the lamp at the time! With a nice twinkle in her eye she made these wishes come true. We even had a magic carpet ride to transport our characters to old Baghdad. Only the opposition from the Slave of the Ring (Rebecca Ludman) stood in her way!  This young lady (only 13!) made a strong and lively opponent with accent and style to show that she was a worthy if slightly less magically gifted magician. Another performer with potential to develop as experience is gained. Now I normally like a duo as ‘funny’ henchman etc but PC, sorry Inspector, Li Li Law (Gary Davidson) worked his socks off to protect the ‘Royals’ and added some nice touches of humour to the proceedings.

It was heartening to see this combination of adult company DTC with youngsters from DOSYTCo working together as the Dance Team and Wishee’s Squad, the youth mostly experiencing their first adult ‘big’ live show, showing great style and energy with the Ensemble, adding so much to the whole show. They coped well with the modern and not too well known songs, and delivered Company numbers with enthusiasm and vocal prowess. This was a panto for the whole family, following the traditional story and providing a great evening’s entertainment.

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