Aladdin

Published Monday 10 December 2007 at 18:05 by Richard Edmonds

This is a neat, tidy little version of Aladdin, with all the traditional bits retained and without the nauseating mucus and flatulence jokes which smear so many panto scripts at this time of year.

A young cast is charming, and for the local dancing school children, you feel that the whole thing is a huge adventure - consequently they give you all they’ve got and dance their hearts out.

Ben Humprey’s Aladdin is smart and alert (it comes as no surprise to discover Humphrey trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School) with an excellent personality which makes him, understandably, the apple of the Princess Jasmine’s eye and from the moment they meet, marriage is a foregone conclusion.

Richard Curnow’s Widow Twankey bangs her way through the time-honoured laundry sequence with alacrity, mangling everything in sight. Nothing makes sense - but in panto that’s cool. Obviously the naughty, overweight, lamp-fixated Abanazar (the excellent Jonathan Darby) is no match for her.

There is no fly tower at the Swan which is mildly dotty. It means traveller cloths rattle across on a wire when scenes change. Some of them are beautifully painted, yet we never get to hear of the scenic artists who did them- how sad is that?

I still haven’t worked out what the giant panda was doing in the laundry, but it did take the kids away from their ice lollies for a moment.