Aladdin

Tonight’s entertainment took us down to Old Peking where laughs aplenty awaited us as we met the inhabitants both good and bad that make up our story. The audience were practically vibrating with anticipation as the curtain lifted on another fabulous production from the Penguins of DE Caversmill.

Everyone in the cast looked like they were having a blast and the audience responded to the energy. This was a pretty tight production so well done to the director and the rest of the team. The music was a mix of some classics with some more contemporary offerings and even an extremely good rendition of Defying Gravity which not many outside of a professional production would take on so a big well done on that one!

The sound and lighting gremlins were obviously not in the spirit of the season (or had maybe been on the sherry) and tried to put in a spanner here and there but the beauty of panto (assuming it’s combined with a talented & experienced cast) is that you can make it part of the joke. This was fortunate when the set also decided to get in on the mischief with a curtain starting to come up early and changing its mind part way up, leaving the feet of most of the cast on full display! But credit to the cast for making it into a joke and the audience were in hysterics! So whilst I am sure the heartrates of the performers were definitely somewhat elevated, handle it well and it just adds to the fabulous panto chaos. Otherwise, the set looked fab with some beautiful cloths creating our world for the evening.

The costume was great, all the actors looked fab and the props were spot on. Far too much fun was had with a supersoaker (well, fun for the cast anyway!) and a pair of pants with a hole in the bottom gave us the best joke of the night (although is it a joke if it’s essentially true?!).

It was the second year running I have seen the combo of Ian Hill and Wesley Walker as the dame and the sidekick (in this case, Widow Twankey and Wishee Washee) and they work extremely well together and confidently handle both what is supposed to happen and what isn’t. Wesley exhibits a manic energy which is perfect for this type of panto role and has a great vocal and Ian’s experience at dameing (new word alert!!) shines through.

Widow Twankey’s other son, Aladdin was ably played by Kirsty Hammonds giving us the young lad who falls in love with Princess Mandarin (Tasha Stott) and goes to seek his fortune so he can ask her father to marry her. Kirsty and Tasha gave us a great vocal pairing and Alexa Williams (So-Shy) added a strong vocal performance (she of Defying Gravity fame!) to the quartet.

Martin Popov had been promoted as last year he was King and this year, The Emperor! A good performance as a Dad trying to find the right match for his only daughter. Not a fan of pauper Aladdin, he sets the local law enforcement team of Hu-Dun-Pong (Nathanial Forrester-Mills) and Yu-Dun-Wong (Dalton Bergqvist) out who gave us laughs with the puns created with a dodgy Chinese accent! Never quite sure about that type of thing in 2025 but the audience ate it up and it did give us some very funny verbal wordplay.

Released by our villain, the Spirit of the Ring (Lucie Woodworth) and the Genie of the Lamp (Kellie Hulland) added the magical element to the evening along with some acrobatics in Kellie’s case! Vocals were good and we had some hip-hop type beats woven through the more traditional panto classics which was great!

And of course, not forgetting our villain, the dastardly Abanazar (or something like that!). Wickedly played by Rob Mills we had the package of a fabulous evil laugh, dastardly plans and an eventual conversion to a nice guy in true panto style. Shame we can’t magic the same effect onto the owner of those bumless pants eh??!

The excellent main cast were supported by the equally excellent dancers and chorus and we were treated to some great dance sequences and some fab group numbers.

If you want all the favourite panto elements you know and love, with a few contemporary elements woven through to keep it fresh then this was the panto for you! We all left giggling at our favourite jokes and humming the catchy tunes and looking forward to next year. Thank you for the invitation and I wish you all the very best for 2026.

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