Ali Baba & The Four Tea Thieves

It was a very cold evening as myself and my guest made our way to see Ali Baba & The Four Tea Thieves, however it was a lovely warm welcome that awaited us.

The stage was open with a beautifully painted back cloth and the Arabian dressed chorus ladies were milling through the audience selling sweets and popcorn - a lovely personal touch I thought. The costumes were fabulous throughout with lots of colour and pizzazz, the dame had quite a few quick changes and coped well. There were a few prompts and dropped lines but the audience were thoroughly enjoying themselves and throwing themselves into the spirit of Panto.

The ensemble worked well together and delivered their songs and dances with great flourish and smiles. I do have a little personal niggle about wearing watches on stage unless it is pertinent to the character part but, as I said it is my personal opinion. Emily Drake who played the role of Ali Baba was a breath of fresh air, she worked very hard every time she was on stage and gave us some great facial expressions - I was particularly impressed with her sand dance. Hilary Edgerton who played her sibling Assam Ali very much put me in mind of the late Victoria Wood and I was impressed that this characterisation was upheld right to the end. She was ably assisted by Tracy Buckley ( Dai Jeeling), Rachael Russell (Tai Phoo) and Laura Derbyshire (Ted Lee) and they added some great comedic elements. David Ambler as Cassie was every inch the Panto villain and he coped well with some audience heckling and booing.

A stand out scene in this production for me was The U.V. Scene - rarely have I seen one as slick and done as well as this one was. There were a couple of sound gremlins to begin with but they were soon dealt with, the lighting worked well with the scenes and storyline. Thank you for inviting me and I look forward to seeing you all again soon.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.