Which lamp has the real magic?
As two Aladdin pantos go head-to-head . . .
Aladdin (New Wimbledon) Verdict: Paul Merton shines in his panto debut . . . Aladdin (Hackney Empire) Verdict: . . . but Big Clive edges it
East and West London go toe to toe in the biggest aladdin pantos inside the M25.
the New Wimbledon theatre has a marquee signing in the shape of deadpan Paul Merton, making his panto debut as Widow twankey. But Hackney has panto colossus Clive Rowe, back as its big man up front.
sW19 has slightly better Christmas cracker gags, but veteran panto creator susie McKenna offers some nice, tippy-tappy dialogue and characters in the East End. Interestingly, both shows go big on the song Eyes Wide Open, and both feature super willow-pattern backdrops.
For me, Hackney’s huge puppet dragon had the beating of Wimbledon’s magic-carpet-on-a-hydraulicarm, as well as its slightly blurry 3D tour of the underground tomb with spiders and monsters leaping out.
still, a good panto is always more about people. Working his socks off for Wimbledon in midfield, magician Pete Firman runs circles round the little ’uns, all the while maintaining a huge teesside smile.
But then alim Jayda (renamed ‘Dishi’) as aladdin’s brother in Hackney is more street-sweet and down with the kids, dressed like a Premier League footballer in ripped jeans and tight jacket.
Wimbledon’s Lee Ryan (from Blue, remember?) and Lauren Chia are needlessly anodyne airheads as aladdin and the Princess. Mean- while, in Hackney, they revert to the much cooler tradition of having aladdin played by a girl — a plucky, bouncy Gemma sutton.
For me, though, the match was decided by what the two teams had up front . . . in gaudy frocks. In Paul Merton, Wimbledon certainly has a world-class comedian, scoring beautifully with a batty routine about delivering laundry to Messrs Who, What and I Don’t Know.
THEN there’s Merton’s party piece: reciting the entire plot in under a minute without hesitation, deviation or repetition.
It’s a tough call, but I think Clive Rowe edged it. a hilarious hybrid of Barry White and Liberace — with the deportment of a Victorian toby Jug — he has a Rolls-Royce voice, which runs smoothly through the gears in a super-fly rendition of Queen’s Don’t stop Me Now.
Result? an auditorium aboil with happy, squealing kids.