Aladdin – the story of a boy

I'm afraid I put a bit of a damper on last year's panto review, where my major concern was about lack of vocal clarity: http://www.theatre.asn.au/theatre_reviews/robin_hood_the_babes_in_the_wood_hayman_theatre_panto Well, you're all not going to like me very much but I have to say that I have almost exactly the same problems with this year's production... Clarity wasn't great. Not so much a problem of projection this year, but mainly a problem of rushed delivery and diction. Anyone who is microphoned needs to take extra care - a mic won't solve diction problems, only amplify them! The group singing was better this year, but there were still difficulties in hearing the lyrics...partly because of the pitch of some of the songs, and partly because of poor mic technique. I'm sure had it been a Shakespeare performance, the delivery of the lines would have been emphasised. Well for some kids, the puns and rhymes in the script are almost as unfamiliar as Shakespearean language is to us! But at any rate...when so much of the humour in a panto relies on wordplay and emphasising corny rhymes and punchlines, you've just got to hit the delivery so we all get both the set-up and the sting. Misdeliver either and you're shooting yourself in the foot. On a positive note, the audience of primary school kids all got right into it, yelling and cheering and were all entertained. And I heard that the second matinee had a big number of highschool-aged kids who also got into it...so the show obviously works on many levels. Characters were all big and fun, the energy never flagged, the production looked good and was well designed, the scenes were fast paced, and the jokes were...well, bad. In a good way! My favourites were the villain Nathan Hitchins, who had a solid stage presence and no problem being heard, the queen Kathryn Clarkson, who was a wonderful character but still could have been a bit more careful delivering her hilariously convoluted lines, and Alex Littlewood's widow who this year has grown from experience and was very comfortable in all of his direct to audience interaction. And a personal bug-bear of mine...when a prop breaks and something unplanned is left onstage - fix it quick! The two nunchuk pieces that sat on stage during the song and dance routine were really distracting, especially knowing it was so easy to solve. Eventually they got kicked off stage at the end, but it would have been so easy to have just picked them up, rather than everyone stepping around them. I think actors feel like they have to hide mistakes like that from the audience, and so they wait for a 'convenient' time when they can fix it in secret...but in the meantime, I'm staring at it and looking at each one of you wondering who's got their act together enough to deal with it. It's far less distracting to see someone bob down for a second, pick it up, and hold it in their hand for the remainder of their routine than to watch it draw focus. Seems like such a tiny detail, but these sorts of things really distinguish the competent performers who can think in the moment. Still quite a few shows to go, so hopefully there's time to tweak the vocal delivery so you can milk those puns for what they're worth! Cheers, Craig ~<8>-/====\---------