Aladdin

The fun started before the curtain went up, with the Imperial police force, Stopee (Chris Beach) and Lookee (Sarah Channell) doing an improvised search of the audience for sweets and encouraging those new to pantomime to cheer the heroes and boo the villains.  (Most of the audience needed very little encouragement in that respect.)  Their other major contribution was to cause the otherwise fierce, growling villainous Abanazar (Aaron Jones) to corpse with laughter during a nose-to-nose confrontation.

Whilst superficially this was a very simple staging, it was very well thought-out.  The apron stage projected, studio-theatre style, all the way to the front row of the audience, but there was, in effect, a low wall built in front of the curtain line.  This served as a mount for boundary microphones and a simple hiding place for props and for some of the pyrotechnics, whilst looking perfectly natural and not blocking the view of the audience.  There was also an excellent use of a theatrical gauze which had the effect of trapping the dry ice haze, as Aladdin (Beki Holdaway) travelled on a flying carpet above the clouds.

This was an original script, by Director Paul Munday, which took the plot at a brisk pace in order to allow plenty of time for the songs and dances from the large and delightful chorus.  Unfortunately, some of the jokes got lost either through speed of delivery, or beneath the general hubbub, though since I saw the show on the first night, much of that would have been recovered as the cast got used to playing to an audience.  One of the particularly good innovations of the script was with the “guard my object” routine.  This is a standard pantomime routine, designed to loosen the tongues of the audience, by getting them to shout whenever an unwanted person approaches a particular object left on the stage by one of the goodies.  Usually, other than involving the audience, this routine is pointless, but in this case, there was a good reason behind it, with Wishee Washee (Rebekah Keen) trying to hide from prying eyes a bundle of clothes ruined by the laundry.

There were some very neat effects - apparently small bursts of flame from ring or lamp - to summon the Slave (Chantelle Woods-Dean) and the Genie (Chloe Seaborn), respectively.  Fabulous costumes (with innumerable changes for the chorus).  Good contrasts too between the formality of the imperial family - the Emperor (Tom Steckler) and Princess Yasmin (Nicole Cummins) - and the informal daftness of Widow Twankey (Chris Thompson).

A very impressive spectacle.

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