A wonky romance sits at the heart of this overhauled Arabian Nights folktale. Aladdin is a local lad, working at his mum’s launderette in Shepherd’s Bush market. Jasmine is an Indian princess who wants to be “normal” but is hemmed in by bodyguards.
Cue teen passion that breaches the class divide and a rendition of Pulp’s Common People by Aladdin (Andre Antonio) and Jasmine (Aleyna Mohanraj), which sets the tone for this poppy panto, led by an onslaught of cover songs.
Directed by Nicholai La Barrie, it is loveably interactive, with heaps of audience participation, sometimes at the expense of the story’s flow. The magic is nifty when it comes, with characters appearing or disappearing in a puff of smoke. Costumes, designed by Good Teeth, are ruffed, sequined, glitter-bound wonders.
It is a shame, then, given the energy and optics, that Sonia Jalaly’s book is so underdeveloped, with a plot built around songs and thin dialogue in between. The jokes, double entendres and puns are all but missing.
The music is infectious, spanning everything from SpongeBob to Beyoncé, Bruno Mars and Ed Sheeran, along with snatches of Shania Twain and a blizzard of cover song medleys, although the few original numbers are drowned out as a result.
The traditional story of the genie, the sorcerer and the boy who retrieves a magic lamp from a cave gets an update: the sorcerer is Jasmine’s dastardly stepfather (Andrew Pepper), and the cave into which he sends Aladdin is “in the middle of Lidl”. This has potential for comedy but is not built upon in scenes featuring the supermarket’s back room. Puppet birds occasionally appear, bringing the cute factor, but they are underexplained and a little random.
Aladdin has a cheeky charm and Jasmine a fine voice but they are ultimately a little anodyne, Jasmine more so than Aladdin. It is his mother, the fabulously “street” Widow Twerkey (Emmanuel Akwafo), whose dancing, singing and sashaying brings the charisma and riotousness. Along with the genie (Jodie Jacobs), she owns this show.
There is a self-conscious effort to subvert the classic motifs of panto, such as the traditional wedding bells at the end, but it is more lip service than a radical reimagining. The conventional elements of the genre are inserted into the book, one after the other, a little schematically. But even so, there is an abounding warmth and entertainment value to this show that makes it winning in its charms.
• At the Lyric Hammersmith, London, until 5 January
