Aladdin: This is Panto! Lucy Tyrrell Darrick Wood School

I’ll cut to the chase— the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre’s Aladdin Pantomime (back for the 2021-2 season) is the best panto I’ve ever seen. ‘New music, really current with the times!’ Is an accurate (and rather reserved) way to describe the rip-roaring success that is this production. ‘It was really good, and fun and entertaining!’ a mother tells me, saying that her kids ‘loved it’, a feeling that was shared with everyone in the audience.

‘I think I preferred it more because it was more current’ a woman tells me, referencing the political undertones that were the base of many of writer Vikki Stone’s jokes. My favourite gag of the evening was ‘next slide!’ when the evil Jafar-like character of Abananzer (played by Irvine Iqbal) was explaining his evil plan in his new (and very expensive) briefing room that cost £2 million. ‘That’s just the going rate these days,’ the Emperor (played by Kate Donnachie on the night I attended) shrugs. This was ‘very different to a normal panto…but very current to what’s going on’, with references to our common enemy COVID-19.

‘We didn’t know that the Genie and the Emperor were the same person!’ a couple tell me, referencing Katie Donnachie’s multi-roling. ‘To be able to play both parts was very clever and very quick…the way she played her part especially as the Emperor was hilariously funny’. Donnachie wobbled around in her clown shoes as the Emperor, embracing her blond mop-like wig (imitating who, I wonder?) and throwing tantrums whilst sitting on a Henry the hoover. As the genie, she shone (perhaps partly to the paillette covered outfit that Costume Designer Kinnetia Isidore kitted her out in) and surprised us all with her beatboxing. ‘I think she was brilliant,’.

A thoroughly modern panto needs thoroughly modern music, which Musical Director Adam Gerber delivered on. Every actor in the cast was a fantastic singer, but particularly Wishy (played by Gracie McGonigal in her professional stage debut). Wishy had a heart-wrenching solo about loneliness and the need for a friend that had the audience sighing. The rest of the music was higher energy, with a bit of classic ABBA as well as High Hopes by Panic At The Disco. As a teenager succinctly put it: ‘Those songs were absolute bangers, loved it!’

‘It was completely different to what I’d expect to see in a traditional panto,’ but some panto conventions were upheld, with our Widow Twankey being played by Stephan Boyce in fantastic pink sparkly costumes. Abanazer’s cerise coloured velvet power suit (and cape) made him all the more evil, with the audience belting out their boos (and later Glory, Glory Hammersmith!) as well as their ‘he’s behind you’ s!

As with all Lyric productions, the script was full of ‘witty lines’ and trademark ‘positive messaging’ as well as strong feminist undercurrents that were most obviously displayed in the character of Jasmine (played by Ellena Vincent) in her performance of Wings by Little Mix, and in the adapted fairy-tale ending of the panto. The four young people in the ensemble (Carla-Jean Lares, Kane Feagan, Harry Drane and Caroline Adebayo) were well rehearsed with their dancing during Jasmine’s solo, and committed completely to their roles of incompetent cronies to Abanazer, bashing each other on the head whenever the occasion arose.

With all live performances, there is the opportunity for things to go wrong. In the second act, Aladdin (played by Qasim Mahmood) was getting dressed up in his fisherman’s disguise of some bight yellow waders: ‘it was a joke at first that he couldn’t put them on, and then for real he genuinely couldn’t put them on’ which resulted in Mahmood cultivating the funniest (and unscripted) moment in the play, where he hobbled around with his waders on back to front like Bambi on ice. The audience (myself included) were cackling at his physical comedy skills; the Lyric actors know how to manipulate themselves, their costumes and their audience to get a laugh.

The standout moment in the production was the magic carpet scene: without giving anything away, the audience were enthralled, swept up in a sparkling rendition of Something Just Like This. ‘Oh my days…listen right, I don’t know what witchcraft was going on!’ says one teenage attendee. ‘It was pure magic!’. Set designer Lily Arnold and Lighting designer Sally Ferguson truly outdid themselves; it was a magical moment, no strings attached…!

Tickets are from £10 and the panto runs at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until the 2nd January 2022.

By Lucy Tyrrell