Catherine Bennett resumes the weekly look at the performing arts world, with the sad end of Jerusalem, the luck of a cabbie, and French revolt. Do you hear the people sing?
Adam Alcock reviews Nigel Kennedy playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons and his own Four Elements at York Opera House.
Catherine Bennett highlights the trends in the performing arts world today.
Jonathan Cridford reviews 'Ghosts', one of the Freshers' plays for this year.
Contributed to The Yorker's Christmas Advent Calendar by the Performing Arts section.
Seriously- who doesn’t love the pantomime? The mix of dance, comedy, musical and theatre. The fanciful costumes, the beautiful backgrounds, the humour, the interaction with the audience.
At least that was my expectation when I went to see Aladdin at the York Opera House on Monday and I was not disappointed: t was immediately evident that this was a production moulded from love and effort.
Especially mentionable is Aiden J. Harvey, who kept the children entertained as Wishee Washee. Whether it was through songs, interaction, splashing water on the audience or just his very crude interracial humour, everything worked. He performed so brilliantly that even though his jokes clearly addressed the younger part of the audience, it was also very enjoyable for the adults.
But this mentioning should not lessen the performances of the other actors; they were all very capable, very entertaining to watch and very good with children. My respects go especially to Phil Randall, who survived walking in high heels for over two hours for the purposes of a cross-dressing joke.
Story-wise it pretty much follows the traditional tale of Aladdin, even though the fact that it was suddenly set in China was quite confusing- but then again the same thing has happened with productions of Aladdin for the last few years throughout. It is undeniable that this setting opened another range of possibilities to make fun of the Chinese language, culture and especially pronunciation, which- as insensitive as it is- is of course very entertaining for children.
Apart from this, they included some humorous scenes in the launderette of Aladdin’s mother, which mainly served for the purpose of entertaining the audience though and did not expand or change the main storyline. This makes it easy to follow, especially for the little children, who might know the original story but would not appreciate changes.
Coming to the aspects of dance and singing, the dancing was very well done and especially including small children in the dance seemed very engaging and thoughtful. The general feel of a colourful, glittering town, people, play was continued in the dance and generally went along with a sense of playfulness. In this context, some of the ballades sung for example by Daniella Gibb as Princess Yasmin seemed a bit out of place, just because they seemed too serious for the general atmosphere of the play.
Otherwise, however, there is really not much to criticize about the pantomime; very entertaining and very, very fun. The director Simon Barry has done an amazing job and I’d very much recommend to watch it, whether you have children to bring as an excuse or not.
For yesterday's Advent Calendar article, click here.
You must log in to submit a comment.
