Due to being orphaned so early, Aladdin never received a formal education, nor had a positive role model to guide him through life. By the time Cassim returned, he couldn't find his family, believing them to be dead, resulting in him leaving Agrabah out of despair, where he'd eventually become a leader of the infamous Forty Thieves, though this would remain unknown to Aladdin for an extended number of years. A few years later, Aladdin's mother passed away, leaving him an orphan and forced to fend for himself.
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Due to this, Aladdin never met or knew his father, believing he was dead and was given a dagger as his only memento. Due to their struggling background, Cassim left Agrabah shortly after Aladdin was born in hopes of finding a better way to provide for his family.
Aladdin old vs new cast Pc#
This was a show of great double acts, with brilliant chemistry between Widow Twanky and her second son, Wishy Washy The Sultan and Garda PC and Aladdin and the genie. However, there was an obvious vocal strength and confidence in the cast, who raised the bar from last year’s show, with standout performances by the genie (Norman Payne), princess So Shy and Aladdin himself. A shame that some of the supersmart lyrics were pattered out so fast that they became inaudible in parts - especially for a younger audience who struggled to follow the thread of the storyline being rolled out in song. With ne’er a Disney lyric to be heard, this production of Aladdin is peppered with original lyrics and stomping chart hits in rapid fire musical numbers which delighted the audience. Soon we are in the cave with Aladdin as he uses up two of the three wishes granted to him by a genie he has released from an old lamp. The cast are in uproar but the audience are unperturbed and the story zips on regardless. The Corkman’s shrill tones soon put manners on the cast, informing them that they are no longer allowed to refer to us in the audience as ladies and gentlemen (offensive) or boys and girls (ageist). Starting to sound familiar from the bedtime stories of your youth? The arrival on stage of Garda PC (Stephen O’Leary) wielding his painted red hurley changes all that. Each unaware of the other’s social status, they become smitten. When an undercover Princess Jasmine shows up, he helps her escape from the police after she finds herself accused of stealing.
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Aladdin - played with chutzpah and disarming charisma by West End actor Julian Capolei - works the crowd. The Gaiety’s Aladdin opens with gusto and its ensemble cast in pitch perfect form, singing and dancing in the marketplace of Agrabah. And the villain of the piece was not the evil vizier Jafar but an evil magician Abanazer (Nicholas Grennell) who poses as Aladdin’s long lost uncle to trick him into retrieving the lamp. Strangely enough, panto is actually where the story of Aladdin adheres closest to its origins, in the centuries old stories called the One Thousand and One Nights.Īladdin, for example, was not the orphan of the Disney films but lived with his mammy - played here by Joe Conlon as of pantomime’s best drawn dames, Widow Twanky (complete with washing line strung around her coiffure). Where else but in the stalls of the Gaiety Theatre, for example, can you experience an actual flying carpet hovering above your head? Or see a blue genie appear in a puff of cough-inducing smoke in front of your very eyes? Or watch a real Arabian princess So Shy (Linzi Cowap) rap and twerk in luminescent, Gucci-inspired clobber? Of course, it is in panto that the eponymous tale of the Arabian street rat really sparkles. The story of Aladdin is an archetypal panto favourite yet you might worry that the narrative has lost its gleam for audiences, having been lavished with Disney love over the years - first as an award winning animated film and more recently, as a live action film. Treading the boards - and the fine line between glamorous and gaudy, precociousness and political correctness, magic and musical theatre - the cast of Dublin Gaiety Theatre’s Aladdin deliver another generous serving of festive entertainment for this year’s panto season.