Aladdin (Southend, Cliffs Pavilion)

If you want to take your family to a proper pantomime this Christmas, then this Aladdin is not the production for you. It’s basically an adult variety show loosely – extremely loosely – wrapped around the traditional story. I felt extremely sorry for Carly Day as Princess Jasmine who seemed to spend the entire evening as the butt of other “characters”’ verbal and physical jokes.

You know that something is amiss when the prologue refers to a simple but honest youth who will retrieve the magic lamp for Barry Bloxham’s Abanazar and we then meet a “45 year-pld still living at home with his mum”. Bloxham makes a credible villain, when he’s allowed to get on with the plot, and Barry Hester’s Widow Twankey offers a suggestion of a proper Dame in the making.

On the positive side, there are some very good laser lighting effects and a well-managed ride on the magic carpet. Both the adult and child dancers perform their routines with style and the peaches’n’cream colour scheme for the finale is attractive. In between we have a sequence of speciality acts – Phil Hitchcock’s Emperor is a dab hand at producing doves from his capacious sleeves – and much more “corpsing” than is seemly, even in a pantomime context.

There’s rather too much of their turns, but the Denvey Troupe do some acrobatics which for the most part work well. Script is by Jon Conway and direction by Bob Tomson. The main comedians are Peter Piper as the Prime Minister and his twin brother the Chief of Police. and, of course, Shane Richie in the title role. They enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Which, I’m afraid, is much more than I did.

- by Anne Morley-Priestman