Aladdin – Review – Sheffield Lyceum
By Clare Jenkins, December 2025
Abracadabra! Here we are again in the Mad-as-a-Hatter (but what hats! What hairstyles!!) world of Sheffield Lyceum’s panto. Striding in the footsteps of last year’s award-winning (UK Best Panto, no less) Snow White comes Aladdin, once again written and directed by Paul Hendy, with Emily Wood as Assistant Director, choreographed by Sarah Langley and – for the 18th year running – starring Damian Williams as the Dame.
S/he may be Dolly this year as opposed to Nellie last year, but her appearance is as joyously daft as ever: three-tiered pumpkin and black-and-gold Nefertiti hairdos, and Michael J Batchelor’s larger-than-life, electric-coloured costumes, including a tasselled lampshade, peacock feathers, false teeth sleeves, bulbous breasts bigger than a bishop’s mitre, and a Béres pork sandwich bag – the Sheffield audience got the joke. And her personality is still as big as “the ancient pyramids of Attercliffe” – another local reference, of which there are many.
“Psychedelically bright”
But then, the whole show is outsize and unbelievably high octane, from the moment the seemingly inexhaustible musical director James Harrison, jumping around in the ground-floor opera box he shares with his keyboard, starts exhorting the audience to clap and cheer. Straightaway, we’re back in the crazy world of slapstick and songs, glitter-gorgeous costumes, psychedelically bright sets (bring sunglasses), belted-out medleys (bring earplugs) and the occasional water pistol (bring an umbrella).
As for the jokes: expect a Christmas cracker cornucopia of corn, a crescendo of innuendo, referencing everything from Bernie Clifton and Morecambe and Wise to TikTok memes. ”I got hit on the head by a book on punctuation,” says Dolly at one point. “Spent six months in a comma…” Later, when she’s come into unimaginable riches, “We’ve got so much money, even the bags under my eyes are Gucci.”
Elsewhere, “I’m a 19-stone police officer dressed as a highlighter pen,” moans PC World (geddit?), played by Barnsley-born George Akid in a fluorescent police jacket. As one of Dolly’s aprons puts it, this lot are Born To Pun.
“Perky”
Morgan Brind’s sets create a sort-of ancient Egypt, complete with enormous Gummi Bear Mummies (you have to be there) and a couple of huge cuddly elephants. This glitzy vision of the Mystical Orient is where our young hero Aladdin (the irresistible, boyishly bashful, curly-haired Sario Solomon) lives in his family joke shop (complete with ‘Whoppie cushions’ and ‘Performance enhancing rugs’) with his brother Charlie (Joey Wilby, an eternally enthusiastic foil) and mother, aka our Dame.
Former Strictly champion Kevin Clifton makes a fine villain, determined to get his hands on the magic lamp buried deep inside a cave. And yes, he’s a lovely mover – and throws himself wholeheartedly into the role, with his knowing looks, quizzical eyebrows and scheming ways.
Evie Pickerill – of CBeebies fame – is a charmingly perky Spirit of the Ring, while Elliot Broadfoot might arrive a bit late in the day but is a gently affable genie. Finally, Lauren Chia is a delightful Princess Jasmine, Aladdin’s love interest.
“Fast-and-furious”
What plot there is, though, is totally tangential to the effervescent energy, boundless exuberance and high levels of humour onstage. There’s some wild and wonderful dancing by the whole cast, a fabulous cartoon-like Batman sequence, the inevitable ‘He’s behind you!’ scene accompanied by ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’, and various fast-and-furious medleys of songs that manage to span all ages from The Beatles and Pulp’s ‘Common People’ through to Wheatus’s ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ and ‘Golden’ from Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters (no, me neither).
But it would be worth going for the flying carpet scene alone, as Aladdin soars through the night sky in a haze of fog, singing, floating and tumbling almost above our heads.
The two-and-a-half hours start with the live musicians playing ‘Bring Me Sunshine’. And yet again, in the middle of winter, the Lyceum panto gleefully does just that. “A great big sugar-rush of a show,” as my companion put it.
Aladdin is at Sheffield’s Lyceum Theatre until 4th January: sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/events/aladdin
Clare’s dream is to live in a hotel suite, safe from the bother of boiler breakdowns and crashing computers. Thanks to her husband Stephen McClarence’s work as a national newspaper travel writer, she’s been lucky enough to stay at hotels across the UK, India and many other countries – and has loved (nearly) every minute. As a journalist herself, she was a regular contributor to Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour for over 20 years and has made features and documentaries for Radios 3 and 4. She’s also a former theatre reviewer for The Stage magazine and, with her husband, co-author of Teatime at Peggy’s: A Glimpse of Anglo-India.
