CREDIT has to be shown to Barrie Hunter, the writer, director and star of this year’s Aladdin panto running at Perth Theatre. Hunter has not only come up with a show that’s as inventive as Boris’s Covid Inquiry response (and more believable), he’s also provided a rhyme that sells the show to perfection.
“If you dare to venture through the Pass of Killiekrankie, you may come across a widow who goes by the name of McTwankie. She’s the mother of Aladdin, who’s the brother of wee Hank E, and their late, lamented father was the country singer, Frankie!
“But their mobile laundry business is now going down the stankie, thanks to Abigail McKrankie, they’re all weeping in their hankies. She’s cancelled all their contracts, (which is just, quite frankly skanky) And the morals would appear to be right mockit, mean and manky!
“Her plans to get rich quick involve young Aladdin McTwankie, and if he finds the cave, she’ll soon be uber-rich and swanky.”
Yet, it’s no surprise that Barrie Hunter has once again taken a popular panto and successfully transferred it across time and continents, this time from Old Peking to Perthshire, having worked extensively in theatre across Scotland with companies such as the Royal Lyceum, the National Theatre and Dundee Rep.
Yes, in writing, directing and starring as the dame he’s perhaps suggesting just a little hint of megalomania, but that’s allowed for, isn’t it, when the results are consistently terrific.
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What Hunter does neatly is create a lovely storyline. He asks the key questions in life.
“Who is this young woman who’s arrived in the village, looking for her back story? Is that the sound of chainsaws in the forest? Are those really giant red squirrels coming out of the trees? And who on earth is Jeannie?”
And Barrie Hunter somehow manages to incorporate a new panto message. Rather than “wish our lives away” as in the auld tradition, he suggests we should “live in the moment”.
That may have been the ethos of Boris at the time of world disaster, but it’s a little risky in pantoland, a place for hopes and dreams.
But it’s all about context, and Hunter’s idea proves to be a killer.
Aladdin, Perth Theatre, until December 31.
Don’t Miss
Another tour de force panto dame can be found at the Beacon Arts Centre in Greenock where Jimmy Chisholm has been described as “an incendiary dame”. Chisholm is appearing in Beauty and the Beast (December 9-31), playing opposite Still Game stars 
Far away from pantoland, in the west end of Glasgow to be exact, Oran Mor is staging Doris, Dolly – and the Dressing Room Divas. Where else will you manage to see Clare Waugh cleverly playing out the likes of Calamity Jane, or Frances Thorburn offering up her delicious Doris Day or the outrageously talented Gail Watson turn in a raunchy Mary Poppins? However, writer-director Morag Fullarton’s music-theatre piece offers more than a collection of much-loved songs. Yes, we do get to see Doris (Day) and Dolly (Parton) sing their hearts out – but the ticket money ensures we also see Judy and Liza and Julie too.
READ MORE: Glasgow: Theatre company opens new workspace in former office block
Yet, it’s the Dressing Room Divas who assume star status as they “morph from anonymous make-up girls into Hollywood icons who are the stuff of glossy legend, and the oxygen of back-lot gossip”. And it’s a storyline that reveals much of the true lives of the stars who are being played out here on the basement theatre stage. We get to hear tales of absent fathers, pushy mothers, family poverty and a childhood surrendered to the adult responsibilities of being the chirpy, singing breadwinner.
And all that undiluted misery can’t be bad. “Just enough of the pain, the pills and the imprudent marriages is woven into the wise-cracking banter for us to understand what it took for each of them to go on singing – in Julie Andrews’s case, the real trial was being trapped in a squeaky-clean image,” said reviewer Mary Brennan.
Listen out for the blended harmonies put together rather wondrously by musical director Hilary Brooks. And watch out for a Mary Poppins you have never popped eyes on before. Indeed, see how Waugh slips so effortlessly into Cabaret mode as Liza Minnelli, while Thorburn produces an uncanny Joel Grey. And most likely you will never ever see a better Dolly, captured perfectly by Gail Watson who reveals her inner hillbilly girlie.
This is most certainly an audience participation show. It’s a piece of stagecraft that not only allows for, but commands sing-along. It’s a night out of fun. And while it’s not entirely suggesting of Christmas spirit it’s odds on that Doris and Dolly fans will arrive in their droves, having partaken of exactly that.
Doris, Dolly and the Dressing Room Divas, Oran Mor, evenings, December 18-30 at 7pm. (And a Christmas Eve show at 4.45pm)
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