Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Bill Ward and Jennifer Harding at the Floral Pavilion’s Aladdin, December 2018. Photograph by Brian Roberts and used with kind permission by The Floral Pavilion.

Cast: Bill Ward, Michael McGinn, Jennifer Harding, Bradley Judge, Andrew Agnew, TJ Lloyd, Michael Chance, Kelsie-Rae Marshall, Andrew Gallo. Samuel Wright, Beth Mortimer, Daisy Smith, Annie Winstanley, Jennifer Wong.

Musicians: Peter Golding, Adam Behrens, Jonny Christie.

The Genie should never be rubbed up the wrong way, for your wishes and dreams at the end of the day should only be concerned for seeing the world become a better place, the happiness that comes with seeing a smile on a young person’s face as you spend time with them, that they get the first experience of life in theatre. A present that cost a fortune is one thing but it is quite another to see them smile and laugh at jokes they might not even get yet, to watch them grow in confidence because the family, in whatever shape and form, took time out to sit with them and join in the fun.

There is always fun to be had at the panto, plenty to join in with and sing along too, making sure that happens is a monumental task, one in which the cast and creatives at New Brighton’s Floral Pavilion have reached out and surpassed with their 2018 performance of Aladdin, a panto that Ken Dodd would have been proud of watching from the front row.

There will always be those who see the appearance of a well-known television soap actor turning up in the Christmas Panto across the land and find some way in which to deride, to mock the attitude displayed, to suggest that it is somehow beneath them and unfair on the parents who have paid to have the family entertained; whatever your own particular take on the subject, to witness Coronation Street’s and Emmerdale’s Bill Ward being such a smash with the audience, to see him personify the meaning of the Pantomime experience and take the joy to a wonderful height of playful sincerity.

Along with the rest of the cast, notably Jennifer Harding as the Slave of the Ring, Andrew Agnew as Wishee-Washee and Kelsie-Rae Marshall as Princess Jasmine, and including the children of the Hoylake School of Dance who delighted the crowd inside New Brighton’s Floral Pavilion with their dedication and sheer enthusiasm, this was a performance that captured the heart of Christmas delight, an all round festival of what it means to appreciate the point of panto, that unlike television on Christmas Day, unlike the endless parties and regret, a couple of hours in a theatre with those you love can do wonders for your soul.

Aladdin at the Floral Pavilion is the place to be this Christmas on the Wirral, a light that shines from any rubbed lamp and certainly one of your three wishes.

Ian D. Hall