How appropriate that the Theatre Royal Stratford East, closed for refurbishment these past four years, should re-open with one of the things it does best - a musical pantomime.
How brave that in doing so it is courting one of the most impatient of all audiences - the under-10s. And although this latest panto, with book and lyrics by David Cregan, has moments when it excites its young spectators into nearly apoplectic states, at other times they merely wriggle in restless distraction.
Happily, more moments register approval than disapproval amid cauldron-like scenes of highpitched hysteria. There is much wailing consternation as Aladdin is tricked into getting the golden lamp from the enchanted cave by the evil Abenazar. There is also much fisting the air during the flight of the magic carpet over the pyramids and Great Wall of China. Similarly, there is much alarm at lovers' kissing, and at Aladdin and Abenazar's closing fight.
Aladdin himself is a street-tuff, break-dancing rapper who flouts convention by being cast as a boy - Kat B. However, the character inciting the strongest passions is Brian Protheroe's dastardly, plummy-voiced Abenazar, who deliciously promises to make Aladdin so rich he will "almost die from the pleasure of it". Elsewhere, Michael Bertenshaw plays Aladdin's mum, Sung Dinan, an alarmingly aggressive pantomime dame who's forever chastising the boy's dead father. But Darlene Johnson softens things up as a sweet old dear of a genie, who is also a basic magician.
In Kerry Michael's leisurely production, Jenny Tiramani's design aptly turns the newly touched-up auditorium into an Aladdin's cave of glittering spectacle. Protheroe's uncomplicated music also allows for a wicked tap-dance routine, choreographed by Karen Rabinowitz. With all this razzamatazz, plus the odd flash and bang, the kids are kept sufficiently engaged.
Aladdin
