Aladdin At The Viaduct Theatre Halifax Review

Reviewed by Jenny Bray

This pantomime is by Panto Ever After and is based around a modern version of Aladdin, together with extra pantomime scenes, including one singing ghostbusters. There are several pop songs incorporated, including a Queen song mash up at one point. The cast is quite small, with just 7 main actors. It is a great addition to have 8 girls from Miss Stacey’s school of dance and theatre providing extra dance moves to some scenes. They all looked like they were loving being a part of the show too, which was nice to see.

Widow Twankey (Scott Worsfold) is the dame of the show and mother to 2 sons; Aladdin (Amy Zoldan) and Wishee Washee (Holly Norbury). She provided most of the jokes and gags throughout, some of which were tailored to local areas. There were a few dress changes throughout the show for her. My favourite was the festive finale outfit. I also loved the genie of the lamp’s costume (Fiona Egan). Other costumes were suitably bright. Sir Eton Mess’ (James Nicholas) was a very bright suit.

The ‘baddy’ is Abanazar (Barrie English), who encouraged boos from the crowd, although was quite a nice baddy really, so wouldn’t be too scary for any age of child.

Holly Norbury, who played both Wishee Washee and Jasmine, was also responsible for crowd activities and shout outs at the end. My children only realised towards the end that Wishee Washee and Jasmine were never on stage at the same time and were actually played by the same person!

The show was quite interactive and I would say would be ideal pitched at families with younger children, which to be fair was most of the audience today. As such, it may have benefitted from being a little shorter, to keep the youngest audience members captivated.

The set props needed to be able to be easily brought on and off the stage, so were fairly minimal. The stage floor was able to easily change due to having different things projected on to it.

I’d not been to the Viaduct theatre before so had looked it up. It is an underground theatre, situated under Dean Clough Mills. This makes it quite industrial looking inside, with high ceilings. It was well signposted so fairly easy to find and parking there is free after 5 and at weekends, which is a bonus. It’s worth noting that if the ground level floor of parking is full and you end up heading to the lower floors, then the turns on the car park are quite tight if you have a large car or one with a fairly poor turning circle!

Before entering the main auditorium there is a big sign about there being blankets available if you’re cold. However, as I’d expected it to be cold, we all went in with our coats and actually found it quite warm, which was pleasantly surprising. The venue is fairly compact, with just 300 seats. The stage is set in the middle of the auditorium, with seating on two sides. This provides quite an intimate performance for the audience and easier for the actors to get audience participation. It also means that most of the audience are at risk when water is involved…

There was a stand selling sweets on the way in. There’s a bar you can order drinks from and there was also a stand selling ice cream, hot chocolate and mulled wine during the interval.

If you get a programme, there are puzzles to keep the children entertained, which is good. If your children enjoy the puzzles – please just swap Abanazar for Aladdin in the wordsearch, otherwise they’ll be moaning that they can’t complete it!

Tickets are very reasonably priced and the shows are on early at either 11am or 3pm, making this a more accessible pantomime for families with young children. It’s not quite as slick as large scale productions but it’s nice to be closer to the stage than you would be in a larger theatre, so feel more involved in it all.

Rating: I rate it a 4/5

Tickets cost from £12.50 to £17 with a family ticket costing £49 valid for either 1 adult and 3 children or 2 adults and 2 children.
Aladdin is on at The Viaduct Theatre in Halifax between 10th and 26th December 2022
For more information or to book tickets call the box office on 01422 849227 or visit; https://theviaducttheatre.co.uk/shows-tickets/aladdin/

The Viaduct Theatre, Dean Clough Mills, Halifax, HX3 5AX