Aladdin

A very welcome return to one of my favourite Border companies who have been sorely missed during the long period of lost production time.

Many of the youngsters have now progressed into adulthood and many tots are taking the junior roles. How much 3 years can change a company of young people… it’s incredible!

The opening introduction by the iconic baddie Abanazer,  could not have been in better hands than  (Monty McNeil). His experience shone through, now as a young adult of the company, holding and antagonising  the audience with expressive gestures and super clear diction. His side kick, Baba Ganoush (Stuart Haddow) was stupendous in his role too, both working well together throughout the show.

The Spirit of The Ring was carefully guarded and well portrayed by Sophie Crowe.

The opening number was colourfully and beautifully costumed to epitomise the magic of pantomime and the show’s opening chorus, ‘Dance all Night’, with Aladdin! 

Aladdin, superbly played by (Kayla Aitchison), owned the title role like a true star, and proved to have a wonderful singing voice. The partnering with Princess Mandarin (Holly Drummond-Cowe), with an equally beautiful voice, worked to perfection.  

The special, harmonic friendship between So-Shy (Emily Brunton) and Princess Mandarin  was lovely also and especially evident in their Bruno Mars duet ‘You can Count on Me Like 1-2-3’.

Well done girls!

 The audience call, “no Hanky Panky!” for Widow Twanky! (Andrew Calder) and Ah-So! for Wishee Washee (Josh Campion), engaged the audience young and old. As an inspired duo and with excellent characterisation of their roles  they achieved loads of audience participation and applause. The kitchen capers with So-Shy and Police duo Hu-Dun-Pong (Aaron Allan) and Yu-Dun-Wong (Sebastian Aitchison) created an hilarious outcome.

The Genie of the Lamp (Cameron Haddow) came in to his own during the glittering cave scene with ‘You’ve never had a Friend like Me’, to compliment the wonderful toe tapping, dancing jewels (Eilidh Oliver, Carly Robertson and Courtney White) and supported in many other numbers by (Kaylin Davie, Abigail Potts, Lily Pringle, Kelsey Shell and Flora Sidney) 

A massive well done!

The cute ‘mini’ Executioner (Micah Davie), The Emperor (Kenny Combe) and the scintillating Temptress (Dawn Matthews) all engaged in their small, but important cameo roles.

From Abba, Lion King, popular pop and ‘Is This the Way to Use a Brillo?’ (community song), we had no end of well known tunes, culminating in a stunning, double wedding finale and a rousing ‘Firework’.

The stage dressings and costumes  were a well thought-out wow factor of colour with glitter, sparkle, silver and gold to add to the overall pizzaz. Shining ‘Bright like a Diamond’ was true in all of the choral scenes.

The production team, back and front of house and all the cast have to take a huge bow and be so proud of the excellent teamwork which resulted in you all achieving an outstandingly successful show. 

It was lovely to see Howie back home too to light up the stage for you all.

Huge Congratulations and Thank You for your hospitality!

 

 

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