Aladdin

A good pantomime needs a plethora of pleasant and pernicious people, panache, pzazz, plots, puns and some panic and pandemonium. The script for this adaptation of Aladdin had all the ingredients and this Littlehampton company did it great justice.

The panic and pandemonium came whenever Pep-Si and Ko-La (Owen Carroll & Justine Hargreaves) appeared on stage as the two inept officers of the law. Wishee-Washee (Finlay Hilder) also caused a lot of mayhem with his antics. His interaction with the audience was well managed. His brother, the title character, Aladdin (Jade Berry) was portrayed well and blended easily with Princess Jasmine (Lois Capel). In this production, Jasmine had a sidekick, So-Shi (Grace Hughes) who very fittingly ends up in love with Wishee-Washee.

Just as the plot reaches the low point of the story where all seems doom and gloom, in comes the Genie of the Lamp (Tom Brennan) with pzazz in plenty to save the day and sing two modern disco songs to bring a fitting end to act one.

The Slave of the Ring (Marie Ball) appeared throughout at opportune moments and gave a well defined performance of a clever spirit with just not enough power. These last two aforementioned characters end up together in the finale of act two.    

We saw the Emperor (John Carroll) early on in the plot but he has a lot more action in the second half having been hypnotised by Abanazer.

Abanazer (Stuart McAdams) had one hundred per cent qualifications for the pernicious element. His enthusiastic pursuit of worldly wealth and power was portrayed well and equally steadfastly hated and detested by the audience.

The plot was cleverly steered through by Wishee-Washee and his mother, Widow Twankey (Jonathan Groves). Excellent acting, lots of changing of dreadful mis-matching costumes, good tom-foolery with the properties, lots of interaction with the audience - just what we needed to see. Of course, Abanazar becomes a reformed person at the end and the two of them end up together.

One particularly sweet moment was the the dance by two junior members of the company during the “Love Story” music. All of the music was played by just three band members and it complemented the singers very well.

It was really pleasing to see so many young people on stage for the many chorus scenes. The scenery was bright and cheerful - excluding the cave scenes, of course - and the technical side was exactly right.

The final “P” is for the great pleasure that we, the audience, received from this production.

Well done to all on stage, backstage and production team for a wonderful show.  

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