Ali the Barber and the Four Tea Leaves

I assume a locally written pantomime based on the well-loved tale of Ali Baba but this one set in Ormskirk-abab – and the four tea leaves were in reality only two.  The opening was really great – a mini film showing Ali the Barber buying a rug and then flying through ‘real life’ Ormskirk with some very funny moments – well done it was a super opening , very unusual and inventive.

Later in the show the same technique was used showing a local television news-reader reading the news in the TV studios.  As the film was from 2002 I doubt many of the young audience would have remembered the presenters but it still made a good impact.

There was absolutely no doubt as to the commitment of the whole cast and the work they put in was apparent – many of the cast doubled, with even the stage-manager having a couple of walk on parts!   I loved Doris the Fairy – it must be confessed as much for the name as anything else but just the thought of a ‘Scouse’ fairy called Doris makes me smile even whilst writing this review – she was also very good on stage, one minute chatting to the audience and the next ‘the stance’ and speaking in rhyming couplets was very well done and really made me smile!

Pantomime is really a little like farce in that in order to be funny it has to be played absolutely straight and it must have pace and unfortunately there were some memory lapses which resulted in a lack of the latter – however these were soon picked up and the sheer enthusiasm carried the show along well. Costumes were very colourful and appropriate although I wanted to run an iron over some of them.

Abanazer and the Dame worked well together as did Ali and Princes Jasmine.  However I think I would have left out some of the music for two reasons – canned music is notoriously difficult to perform to - it being totally unforgiving in terms of speed - and it is so very easy to get out of sync which then turns into a race between the music and the performers but perhaps the more important reason in this case was that the curtain did not come in until 10.25pm which is really far too late for a pantomime to finish.  Particularly one such as this which was totally child-friendly and the children really enjoyed it not getting bored until about 10.00pm (always a good guide).

Very many congratulations to the whole cast and crew, and indeed anyone connected with this production, for an great evening of entertainment and fun – you carried the audience with you every step of the way  thank you for making me feel so welcome and long may you continue to entertain the audiences of Ormskirk.

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