Review: Aladdin – Macrobert Arts Centre

Johnny McKnight makes a wonderful return to the Macrobert Arts Centre Pantosphere, with madcap disco adventure, Aladdin. More Saturday Night Laundrette Fever rather than Arabian Nights, this panto finds Aladdin (Betty Valencia) working for her mum Marge O’Reen McTwank (Johnny McKnight), alongside sister Wiz-She-Was-She McTwank (Helen McAlpine). Into their lives prances Prince Jasper (Dylan Wood), and his pet/alter ego teddy bear, much to Aladdin’s romantic delight. His mother Queenie (Amy Conachan) isn’t having any of it, but soon enough everyone has bigger fish to fry when The Demon King (Robert Jack) makes his bid for world domination.

How does a demonic quest for world tyranny link to our all-singing, all-dancing laundrette? Well you see, the magic lamp he needs to fulfil his dastardly ambitions is stuck in a ghastly cave which consumes anyone lacking a pure heart. A pure heart such as that beating in our heroine Aladdin’s chest.

It’s a suitably barmy set-up, made superbly sparkly by lashings of disco beats and twinkling sequins. Where the big corporate pantomimes have spent years reducing audience participation to the bare minimum, McKnight’s Aladdin thrives on it. Come prepared to boo, cheer, and shout ‘It’s behind you!’ to your heart’s content. If you ask me, that’s just how panto should be.

The show also benefits from some impressive singing talent. Valencia, Wood, and Conachan are (young) musical theatre veterans, who can more than handle Alan Penman’s lively compositions and adaptations of suitably glitzy charting numbers of the past and present. McKnight knows how to inject his trademark banter into lyrics as well as dialogue, and the results are reliably cheery, daft, and entertaining. Occasionally a scene can last just a little longer than the underlying material can carry, but when Aladdin is funny – which is frequently – it’s very funny indeed.

Helen McAlpine and Amy Conachan - Aladdin - Macrobert Arts Centre - Review at theQR.co.uk - Credit Pete Dibdin — **Helen McAlpine** and **Amy Conachan** © **Pete Dibdin**

Johnny McKnight and the Cast of Aladdin - Aladdin - Macrobert Arts Centre - Review at theQR.co.uk - Credit Pete Dibdin — **Helen McAlpine** and **Amy Conachan** © **Pete Dibdin**

Panto-dame par excellence McKnight can chew the scenery with the best of them, but big personality though Glasgow’s king of panto may be, he’s entirely gracious to his cast. This is an equal-opportunity zinger fest, but better still is the anarchic spirit pervading the entire show. Some of Aladdin’s snort-out-loud moments are found when things go a little awry! Jack, playing a L’Oreal advert-worthy villain doesn’t even have to break his vituperously snarky character to stick the knife in when the heroes flub a line or an accent.

McKnight introduces some welcome LGBTQI+ representation into the mix when Jeanie (Conachan) and Wiz-She-Was-She come down with a touch of love at first sight. Aladdin, her wishes, and her compulsive ventriloquist Prince remains the heart of the show, but a little extra romance never spoiled the panto mix. McKnight completes his trifecta of positive messages by also asserting his dame’s complete happiness as a single woman to the cheering approval of the theatre.

The young cast of dancers, singers, evil priests, and denizens of the laundrette is another high point. Professionally drilled by choreographer Steph Fulton they acquit themselves very well indeed. McKnight and the MacBob may have gathered a pretty stellar cast, but it’s the high kicks and big choruses that add that big-show glitz to Aladdin. The sound quality, it must also be said, is on point in this show, the voices clear, the backing tracks well mixed.

Narratively, McKnight’s willingness to introduce a sense of genuine threat and darkness to Aladdin is very welcome. It could be emphasised a touch more, just to put a little more venom in the audience’s booing, but it’s present all the same. The plot also refuses to make every problem fixable with wishes and throws up at least one dilemma to genuinely threaten a completely happy ending. If and when Aladdin is played straight through without any mistakes (as joyous as they are), young audiences in particular may find themselves on the edge of their seats.

Ultimately the panto also reaches a fine climax with a fateful dance battle finale (how else do you suggest a disco panto would end?), an all-hands-on stage extravaganza which never, not for one minute, loses its funny bone. The Demon King’s pain stick (that’s what I’m calling it) proves surprisingly hilarious in particular.

Upbeat, tuneful, anarchic, and warm-hearted, Aladdin is making the Macrobert Arts Centre panto heaven for this Festive season. Those waiting for Johnny McKnight to vacate the throne will have to wait another year (and another, and another…)

Aladdin is a Macrobert Arts Centre production