Aladdin and the Wonderful Pump – sensational!
So they pulled it off again! That Sue Brearley, author and majordomo of this year’s gloriously dippy panto, Aladdin and the Wonderful Pump! What a star! And the whole team behind her (oh yes, they are!)
Tooting Bec Lido/SLSC’s panto has become, if not the most annual tradition, certainly one of its most loved.
In the splendidly witty programme (design courtesy, once again, of the Lido’s presiding illustrative genius, Sue Rentoul but compiled by Sue and Hilary), the team pay generous tribute to the panto’s original creators, the one and only Chris Stanton along with “Princess ‘Hilaria’ Jennings”.
Stanton, a legendary panto dame in his time, is lovingly remembered here in the song he wrote for the first panto, “I like Tooting”, and in every nook and cranny of Sue B’s inspired, topical and hugely enjoyable spoof on the ongoing scandal of our privatised water system. Here, it’s given plenty of “wellie”, masses of audience participation and inspired madcap touches while the usual array of panto villains and hero(ines) are brought vividly to life.
Chief among them (hiss) is that Dermot Jones as the wicked and very dodgy plumber, Abanazer, hoping to make his fortune by getting his hands on the magic pump (housed, of course in the Lido’s pump room!).
Thwarted by Jasmine (Isobel Coley), the eco-warrior daughter of the evil Lord Foulwater (Neil Perot) (boo!), and Aladdin (Rachel Ball), he is aided and sometimes hindered by Vincent Burke and Fernando Farah as the Genie of the Ring Washer and Genie of the Pump, respectively, the latter aptly clad in Trumpian gold.
While praise be to all and sundry, from the smallest teenage mallard duck to the “vintage” swans, the onsite police and lawyers, the Lido Choir and `the people of Tooting’ (!), star of the show this time turns out to be our Barb – Barbara Jennings as laundry matriarch Mrs Twankey with her two sons Andrew Ingamells as Wishy and Teo Giles as Washy (really, you couldn’t tell them apart).
Channelling Dame Edna Everage with crimson specs and washing up gloves, she brought the house down with “I am who I am” (from the musical La Cage Aux Folles). Sensational is the only word for it.
