Skip to main content

THE STAGE REVIEW | ALADDIN


Aladdin

Published Wednesday 21 December 2011 at 15:43 by Susie Wild
Jimmy Osmond, the youngest member of 70s pop act the Osmonds arrives in Swansea as Wishee Washee ahead of the band’s biggest ever UK tour in March.
The addition of this retro, chart-topping pop star makes this story of Aladdin and his lamp one that is bound to please the city’s grandmothers yet leaves song choices rather bewildering for younger viewers. Still, while they sing along to Little Darling and join in on a ditty about how they think Jimmy is dishy, there are other more universal treats in store for the rest of the audience.
3D glasses offer moments of in-your-face special effects, which feel all the more magical for occurring in a theatre environment. From the genie to the magic carpet ride, all these effects work well, although some might want to use one of their three wishes to delete the spider from the story. Moving from the virtual to the actual, the ever popular pantomime dame Kevin Johns is the real Ga Ga-esque star of the show as Widow Twankey, while Gavin Woods makes a convincingly weird baddie as Abanazar.
Grand Theatre, Swansea, December 16-January 15
Author/producer:
Jonathan Kiley
Director:
Andrew Lynford
Cast includes:
Jimmy Osmond, Kevin Johns, Zoe George, Gavin Woods, David Lawrence, Paul Rivers
Running time:
2hr 25mins

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The More Than Human Perspective in Environmental Poetry: A Poem and Interview with Susie Wild

Interview by Zoë Brigley Welcome back to our series on writing the #MoreThanHuman. We offer a set of interviews with poets and writers on how they approach writing about the environment. The more-than-human is a phrase that seeks to side-step traditional nature-culture dualisms and draw attention to the unity of all life as a kind of shared commonwealth existing on a fragile planet. It also reminds us humans that there is more to life, that there is more world, than the human. It relocates us in relation to the mystery. This week we meet Susie Wild , author of the poetry collections Windfalls and Better Houses , the short story collection The Art of Contraception listed for the Edge Hill Prize, and the novella Arrivals . She tells us she lives in Rhondda Fach “with a TBR pile almost as high as Llanwonno”.

Wales Book of the Year Shortlist 2025: Little Universe

We're absolutely delighted for Natalie Ann Holborow , today shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year Award 2025 for her third poetry collection, the stellar Little Universe . Thanks to all the judges and huge congratulations to all the other wonderful writers on the shortlist! If you'd like to get involved, you can vote for your favourite book on the shortlist. ‘Poems of true wonder, mystery composed with precision. Natalie Ann Holborow is a custodian of beauty in the ordinary and the fragility of experience. The lyric moments of her Little Universe made me lift my eyes from the page and consult the stars.’ – Oliver James Lomax ' Little Universe presents an intense voyage through a recognisable Welsh landscape of family, hospital wards, homes, beaches, love, and new life. The poems encompass mythology, the joys of the everyday and the personal inevitability of illness and grief. This is a poetry acutely aware of the specificity of vocabulary and of the unconstrained p...

GIG ALERT: Poetry Showcase with Natalie Ann Holborow, Rae Howells and Christina Thatcher