ALADDIN: AN ARABIAN NIGHT OUT Lyric Hammersmith to 12 January

London

ALADDIN: AN ARABIAN NIGHT OUT
devised by Told By An Idiot

Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith To 12 January 2002
Runs 2hr 20min One interval

TICKETS 020 8741 2311
Review Timothy Ramsden 14 December

Three performances stand out as physical theatre collides with Christmas in Hammersmith.Aladdin East or West? While the Theatre Royal E15 is plugging its panto into traditions of variety and music hall, across London the Christmas show is fuelled by modern physical theatre. Anyone who knows co-producers Told by An Idiot (whose own latest is due at the Lyric Studio later in January) or physical funsters Peepolykus (they've contributed Wishee Washee here) will know what to expect.

If you don't, well the humour is the more funny for being low key, everything being taken very seriously on stage (these folk never let on they know they're in anything remotely funny). It has an absurdity that challenges you to call it daft – and you don't because the deadpan delivery makes it killingly funny.

'Deadpan' is very nearly literal as Paul Hunter's Widow (proprietor of 'Twanky's Whirl and Twirl') metes a hefty thwack with the back of an iron frying pan to anyone, human or genie, who rubs her up the wrong way. She has an extra large pan for special occasions. It's called 'The Full Monty' and has an even bigger breakfast fry-up stuck to its interior.

That's the sort of thing, together with multiple misunderstandings arising from villain Abanazar having a camel named Gorgeous, and being the kind of crook who, having got his new lamp for old, then can't tell the two apart.

However sophisticated it is overall, moment by moment the gags and routines are immediate in their fast-falling impact. And three performances spiral up to delirious heights. Paul Hunter begins as a Jack Douglas-like workman, but soon metamorphoses into washerwoman Twanky, a grotesque figure who takes everything seriously and could never in a thousand and one nights be suspected of being someone who'd see another person's point of view. As antithesis to her, there's son Wishee Washee. He has the family characteristic of taking his view of things as established fact, but unlike mum, everything he does comes with an ever-ready smile of gratification.

Most surprisingly, there's Carmichael's honest Aladdin, a quiet, ready-made family scapegoat. This is a character who reflects on everything, without realising he's doing the reflecting in front of a brick wall, not a mirror. The three lead a fine cast through more than enough to justify a night out in Hammersmith.

Aladdin: Hayley Carmichael
Princess: Natasha Gordon
Widow Twanky/Jack the Janitor: Paul Hunter
Genie/Grand Vizier: Iain Johnstone
Abanazar: Richard Katz
Wishee Washee: Javier Marzan
Sultana/Gorgeous the Camel: Erika Poole

Director: John Wright, with Hayley Carmichael and Paul Hunter
Designer: Naomi Wilkinson
Lighting: Jon Linstrum
Composer/Musical Director: Iain Johnstone

2001-12-16 10:30:50