Aladdin

A bright and breezy script from Alan Frayn gave the society plenty to work with to give us a super fun evening of panto.  We had a happy cast of principals and a solid team of back-up singers and dancers, many of whom I have seen develop over a few years, who showed some very good skills.

The lead role of Aladdin was taken by Matthew Shaw and a very nice job he made of it, working well with Alice Jordan who portrayed Princess Mandarin.  Both showed great warmth of character which suited their roles and partnership.

I enjoyed Phil Wilson as Abanazar and he attracted the right amount of boos from an enthusiastic audience.  Tim Drage was a very likeable Wishee Washee, also having the audience on his side immediately, and Ian Thompson was his usual excellent Widow Twankey character.

Jake Baines and Connor Wilson were excellent and funny as the two policemen, Yu-Dun-Wong and Hu-Dun-Pong, and Bethany Peart-Hunter was really strong as the Genie of the Lamp – she’s got a great voice and moves very well.  With Samantha Zawodny as So-Shy, who gets together with Wishee Washee, Cath Evans as the Empress and Amelia Fletcher as Spirit of the Ring altogether we had a very well balanced cast doing justice to the script.

I must mention, as it’s one of my panto hobby horses, that I thought the performance was just the right length – a little over 2 hours including the interval.  Musical numbers were kept short and sweet and the show had just the right amount of pace.  Costumes were super and lighting and set just right.

Well done!

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.