Aladdin at the Lowther Pavilion, Lytham Review
Aladdin
Lowther Pavilion, Lytham
11-30 December 2014
Reviewed by Catherine Joyce
With two excited children in the car we set off down the motorway to The Lowther Pavilion in Lytham, to see Aladdin. Luckily it only takes about 25 minutes to get to Lytham as I’m not sure they could have contained their excitement for much longer! We quickly parked the car, the theatre has a large car-park which in the run up to Christmas is free, and went in and found our seats.
Aladdin is one of my favourite pantomimes as it has a good strong story and it always keeps everyone’s interest. Having plenty of story to work with means that there is no need for the “padding out” scenes that you sometimes get in pantomimes. This production had all the usual elements that you expect in a pantomime with plenty of “goodies” and the usual “baddie”. Add in plenty of bad jokes, the usual local references and a good dollop of audience participation and we’re all set for a great show.
We took a nine year old boy and a four year old girl to see the pantomime and it was a hit with both. At one point there was a chase scene and the action moved off the stage and into the seating area, our children thought this was really funny especially when we all got showered with water from the water pistol!
The action moves from place to place with a great number of set changes. Some productions try to cope with a smaller number of sets but this was not the case here. There is a scene where Aladdin and Jasmine take to the air on a magic carpet which uses projection to give the illusion of flight this worked very well and had our four year old spellbound.
All the characters were well cast and included Scott Wright from Coronation Street. As you would expect from a panto there was plenty of humour, lots of silliness from Wishee Washee for the younger children and plenty of harmless jokes for the adults that went straight over the children’s heads.
At the end of the day the real judges of how good a pantomime is are the children and judging by the faces of both our children and the children around us this pantomime was a definite hit. My children were dancing around and joining in and had a fantastic afternoon out.
Rating: 5/5 
Tickets cost from £11 to £13.
Aladdin is at the Lowther Pavilion in Lytham until 30 December 2014. For more information or to book tickets click here or call the box office on 01253 794 221.
Lowther Pavilion, West Beach, Lytham St. Annes, FY8 5QQ | 01253 794 221
