The Stage

Aladdin

Published Friday 15 December 2006 at 16:25 by Lisa Whitbread

Star of this show must be Hayley Ellis as Princess Jasmine. Pretty with some great dance and singing abilities, she makes an excellent principal girl. Aladdin played by Emrhys Cooper clearly has strong dance technique and makes a good romantic pairing with Ellis.

Mark Reeves as Wishee Washee provides confident quick wit and ad-libbing with good audience rapport despite the constant heckling from the Hazlitt’s own youth theatre. David Phipps-Davis returns as a flamboyant Widow Twankey who excels in his music numbers. Dafydd Gwyn Howells excellently masters Abanazar’s glare and sinister remarks with just a hint of campness.

Shana Swash, aka Demi Miller from EastEnders is confusingly cast. Her line ‘I don’t do singing as I’m a soapstar’ and her particularly small role doesn’t really give her the chance to develop her wide-eyed giggliness.

The Slave of the Ring was well adapted by casting professional magician Jonathan Shotton, who provided some fascinating trickery.

When the cast are en masse with the dancers, the show really lifts but moments of uncertainty sadly slow the momentum and energy. Visually this show works and the experienced actors carry the storyline but the sometimes confusing script, with some inappropriate jokes and the overload of technicality, mean it is all a bit too much to really hit the mark.