Looking Back on the Pantomime

The Bentley Family made it to the pantomime in Harrogate yesterday, and, as usual, were superbly entertained by the cast of this years offering – Aladdin. Tim Stedman, who has taken the “Silly Billy” role now for the past ten years was his usual exceedingly stupid self!

What do you get if you cross a centipede with a parrot? A Walkie Talkie!

The corny jokes came thick and fast, and it being the penultimate performance, I reckon that we only got about 70% of the original script – the rest was made up of very quick fire ad libs. At one point, when one of the backdrops failed to “drop” and the stage staff dropped another one, Abanazar turned to the audience and said, “Well it’s not my usual home, but it’ll do!”

Widow Twankey, almost slipping on the stage during a laundry scene “It’s another of those places they haven’t gritted!”

Then there was Andrew – a specially selected member of the audience, who at one point had to lead the whole theatre in the singing of the silly song. Wishee Washee made the comment, “It’s a pity we haven’t got a follow spot for him.” Almost immediately on came a follow spot bathing him in bright white light, whilst he led us in the singing!

There was the usual chase scene around the whole of the theatre, culminating in Wishee Washee sliding down a ladder from one of the boxes – I’ll bet Health and Safety don’t know about that one, and from time to time characters appeared in the boxes – at one point Abanazar was to be seen trying to persuade Aladdin to get the magic lamp for him whilst he was busily eating sweets (presumably given to him by the children who were in the box he had chosen). Pandora, the Panda appeared in another box playing a guitar during one of the musical numbers.

From my point of view, Abanazar, (the baddie) was the outstanding performer. Whilst oozing threats and menace, he also managed to fill out his part with lots of amusing and funny asides.

All in all it was a thoroughly entertaining evening out!