Review: Aladdin at New Wimbledon Theatre for a varied and colourful panto

When six-year-old Big Girl was doing a show at home today, she announced it was going to be ‘a little bit like Wishee Washee’ as everyone in the audience would have to shout ‘Hi Wishee’.

The press night for this year’s Wimbledon pantomime Aladdin at New Wimbledon Theatre had clearly made an impression, and we are still talking about the silly Wishee Washee and extravagant Widow Twankey after going to review the show.

With a twist on the children’s classic Aladdin, the production brings everything that is expected from what we’ve come to know as the British pantomime tradition. There’s a famous male actor dressed as a woman; a mix of adult humour and jokes for family audiences; audience interaction; and catchy songs and dancing.

This version of Aladdin tells the story about Widow Twankey, played by Have I Got News For You stalwart Paul Merton, and her two sons–Wishee Washee, played by Pete Firman, and Aladdin, played by Lee Ryan from Blue. The family runs a laundrette in China and the sons have a crush on beautiful princess Jasmine, who can only marry a rich prince.

The production regularly defers from the plot, sometimes with magic tricks performed by Pete Firman and other times with Paul Merton’s funny jokes. For us, one of the highlights was Widow Twangy–Merton–trying to understand where to deliver the different laundry bags, and Wishee Washee–Firman–making an attempt at explaining that the customer names are ‘Who’, ‘What’ and ‘I don’t know’.

In addition to trying to retell this joke – ‘you really had to be there to get it’ – we’ve been raving about the ridiculous costumes that include a dress designed as a noodle take away box as well as top vocal performances, particularly by the show’s Scheherazade.

We were wowed by Scheherazade’s performance of Defying Gravity from Wicked, and as a boy band fan, I also enjoyed seeing Lee Ryan and other cast members perform Blue-hit One Love.

Several times throughout the show we also got to put the 3D glasses to use, following Aladdin and his family into the cave to find the magic lamp. The second 3D section was particularly thrilling, and had us ducking as we were flying around.

This year’s colourful pantomime hits the mark when it comes to amusing costumes, variety in entertainment and standard of vocal performances.

The Aladdin pantomime is running at New Wimbledon Theatre until 6 January 2019. The running time was around 2 hours and 20 minutes, including interval.

Photos by Craig Sugden

Tags: Aladdin, Christmas 2018, Family show, New Wimbledon Theatre, Pantomime, Review