Darlington Hippodrome – until 6 January 2019
5*****
Pantomime has a reputation for being cheesy and chaotic family entertainment and Aladdin at Darlington is just that. I don’t want my panto to be perfect and this offering from QDOS Entertainment is perfectly imperfect from start to finish.
With many of the songs specially set in Darlington (the Petula Clark classic changes from Downtown to In Darlo) and many mentions of the area this is a very local affair, even if it is set in old Peking!
Eric Potts directs as well as starring as Widow Twankey, the mother of Aladdin (Carl Douglas) and Wishee Washee (Liam Mellor). The comedic interaction between Potts and Mellor is fantastic and the scene about a “Short Sleeve Shirt Shortage” involving Potts, Mellor and The Spirit of the Ring (Louie Spence) was side splittingly hysterical, while you waited to see if there would be mistake. Spence has a self-deprecating sense of humour and knew he was going to go wrong which caused a lot of ad libbing and corpsing all round. Of course with Louie Spence we also got lots of amazing dance moves and some shocking innuendos – hilarious for the adults and innocent for the children
Robin Askwith stomped around the stage dressed like a reject from the Matrix, sticking out his tongue and evil enough to get booed by the audience. Musical theatre star Rachel Izen was funny as Empress Ming who got her words mixed up.
Darling of Darlington, Zoe Birkett was phenomenal as the fearless Princess Jasmine – no helpless heroine here, when Aladdin was knocked unconscious it was Jasmine who saved the day with a sword fight. I loved that it showed future generations that sisters can do it for themselves.
With some excellent costumes, incredible special effects courtesy of The Twins FX; subtle but effective pyrotechnics by Le Maitre and fabulous music from the live band (Chris Pugh, Peter Brent, Sophie Hastings) this is a pantomime as magical as the impressive flying carpet.
For the best pantomime I have seen in a long time, get yourself along to Darlington Hippodrome but not until I’ve managed to sort myself a ticket to see this outstanding production again!