Disney Aladdin Jr

There are a lot of versions of the story of Aladdin, thought to have been one of the many tales in the 1712 book One Thousand and One Nights. The story was told by a Syrian named Diyab and although the original story was set in a city in China, Disney set the story in the Arabian city of Agrabah, and so we see a story with an Arabian setting.

The stage set from UK Productions for this show is quite impressive with five revolving triangular pieces that rotate to create the market place of Agrabah, the Sultans Palace, complete with balcony and the cave where Aladdin finds both the Lamp and the Genie. A thoughtful lighting plot and the plumes of ‘smoke’ for appearances of the Genie, sound was good, just one glitch when Aladdin’s mic was late on. There was a remarkable array of costumes making this was a colourful and well produced show. To costume a cast of eighty, requiring many matching outfits certainly kept the wardrobe team busy, I won’t mention them all but the Eight Principals, the Sultan and the Prince had excellent costumes. I heard someone sat behind me say that all the cast had matching footwear, so I’m not the only one who notices that!

In a way it would be unfair to pick out any principal over the others as they were all good, I enjoyed the team work and characters created for Babkak, Omar and Kassim by, respectively Naomi, Holly and Freya. They worked really well together, having personality and character, good singing and movement, they really led the company, together with Aladdin in ‘One Jump Ahead’, their self-named song and ‘High Adventure’. Talking of Aladdin, Otto gave a good performance here, he has good stage presence and a nice singing voice with clear vocals and dialogue giving us a nice reprise of ‘One Jump Ahead’, he paired well with both Jasmine and The Genie. Harmony was a very composed and talented Jasmine, a well sung duet with Aladdin in ‘A whole New World’ and with her entourage of Manal – Arielle, Isir – Thea and Rajah – Aria in ‘These Palace Walls’. There is always a baddie in this show and the audience did like to boo Jafar – Ryan along with Iago - Millie, this role suited Ryan Swanborough (I’m sorry that I didn’t see either of these two in Shrek Jr) I hope he doesn’t get type cast as the baddie, a nicely measured performance with a good stage presence. A nicely sung reprise of ‘Prince Ali’ from both Ryan and Millie who was a colourful ‘parrot’ supporting Jafar, good make-up, not a lot dialogue, but a good presence on stage. The star of the show, was of course Ryan Jennings’ Genie, performed enthusiastically and colourfully with great panache. He had the audience in his hands, whether it be dialogue, song or agility. His personality shone out as he led the company in the Overture/Arabian Nights, ‘Friend Like Me’ and ‘Prince Ali’, he gave strong vocals throughout. Great make-up which he had done himself. There were some great cameos from George as the Sultan and Lucas as Prince Abdullah and the others with their cameo roles.

I was particularly taken by the ten members of the Dance Troupe, very graceful and well timed and matched choreography nicely performed. There was a large ensemble with good singing and even for the youngest well timed and performed choreography. As previously mentioned, this was a colourfully costumed show with many costume changes for the young company so congratulations to the many chaperones who kept this all under control. Thanks too, to the stage crew who swiftly handled the heavy scenery pieces during scene changes, which although done in semi-darkness, had cast members doing a bit of business on stage to cover these changes.

Well done to all, co-directors Poppy and Charlotte, musical director Hannah cast and crew.

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