Aladdin at The Wyvern!

The magical story of Aladdin took a packed, mixed aged crowd, at the Wyvern Theatre on a fantasy carpet ride that had everyone in stitches of laughter on Tuesday, 11th of December.

 

The fantastically talented actor Adam Woodyatt, star of EastEnders, has returned to Swindon for the second panto in a row and he definitely played the evil part of Abanazar to perfection; he also added in the right mix of humour when he asked for a magic carpet and it was thrown in clumsily so he quipped back: “How many times have we rehearsed this?!”

Alongside him, all of the rest of the cast were fantastic – Adam Bailey (Aladdin) had an exceptional voice and Rosanna Harris (who played the part of Princess Jasmine) had the sort of vocal chords that sent shivers down your spine. Their duet of the popular hit ‘Symphony’ by Clean Bandit was outstanding and had us all jigging in our seats. It is a nice touch that every year’s panto includes current hit songs – I loved it when ‘This is me’ from the Greatest Showman was belted out and ‘Mambo No. 5’ got a lot of the crowd moving about.

 

Wishee Washee (played by Gary Jerry) had everyone roaring with glee when he kept getting the audience to shout out “We need a wee wee” whilst shaking both their hands (my 7 year old daughter found this particularly amusing!).

There were the usual Swindon jokes, which everyone took in the good spirit it was meant, such as: “In this town you’re overdressed if you have both ears”. However, my personal favourite was when someone said: “A Swindon-style date is 10 pints at Wetherspoon and a kebab!” (I have actually known this to happen for some people!)

The sets were stunning (the most impressive ones being featured in the scenes titled as ‘Abanazar’s Lair’ and ‘Walkdown Aladdin’s Palace’) but one of the things that really stood out to me was how amazing all of the dancers were; their movements were jolly and fitted the mood of this festive treat of a performance.

 

One of the best things about going to Christmas pantos is hearing the laughter of children all around me and this year’s show had them howling. They especially loved it when there was some water gun action and when people dressed as skeletons were running around the room and spooking everyone out. The little ones also loved the fact that we all had to sing the baby shark, mummy shark and daddy shark song.

This year’s family treat of a Christmas show runs until Sunday the 6th of January and my advice would be to make a wish to a genie in a bottle so someone gets you tickets to this event – you won’t regret it.