We sometimes forget that as well as being a family entertainment, pantomime is a serious competitive business with productions doing their best to attract rave reviews and audiences which can be critical to the financial success of a venue for the whole year. Large venues that can attract large audiences, have bigger budgets for headline casting , special effects and more promotional impact than their smaller local rivals. This is only too clear when you see Aladdin within a few days at both the enormous Bristol Hippodrome with a Qdos production starring Joe Pasquale and at the much smaller Playhouse, Weston Super Mare with an ensemble cast.
The Qdos offering relies almost entirely on Joe Pasquale's high energy squeaky voiced madcap persona, as he does his best to make the rest of the cast corpse and on the amazing Twin FX special effects including King Kong, a giant Cobra, elephants, pandas and a flying carpet with 2 passengers that turns upside down. It is spectacular and amusing but at times the pace slows and the humour is laboured.
