Aladdin, Sunderland Empire

Like the sweets soon thrown out into the audience, this all came back to me with force in a fast- paced and exuberant show.

It had all the traditional ingredients - and more, with the addition of US stars Paul Michael Glaser - as baddie Abanazar - and The Three Degrees' Sheila Ferguson as the Genie.
While all the cast gave top-notch performances, the American contingent did us proud.
Ferguson, with her power-packed vocals, was on fine form, her sassy Genie reminding me of Whoopie Goldberg.

The younger members of the audience were drawn to TV's Grease Is The World finalist Anthony Kavanagh (Aladdin), but the older ones were there to see Glaser, and the theatrics and posturing of the former Starsky & Hutch actor made him a great stage villain.

As the heavily made-up and heavily accented Abanazar, he might have been unrecognisable as the curly-haired crime- buster who tore around the streets of LA, but there were Starsky jokes nonetheless, which no doubt went over the heads of the children.

Hopefully, some of the humour did too. Some jokes were the so-bad- they're-funny types and some couldn't be easily heard; but I thought one or two of the below-the- belt lines aimed at adults were just unnecessary.

The script might not have been the best in the world, but the cast threw themselves into it and did a great job.

Emmerdale actor Dale Meeks was a revelation as the big, blowsy and very funny Geordie Dame, and Steve Walls as lovelorn Wishee Washee struck up a real rapport with the young ones. And there was one woman in the audience clearly willing to give him her number (no, not me).

West End star Kelly- Anne Gower played Princess Jasmine who falls in love remarkably quickly with Aladdin. She's have been even more impressed if she'd seen him on the flying carpet. I don't know how they did it but it worked wonders.

The usual topical and local references got lots of laughs, from mention of Girls Aloud and I'm A Celebrity to football and Northern Rock.

Packed with catchy songs, glitzy sets and costumes and oozing with colour, the audience loved it.

My guest, who has been to rather more pantos than me, reckoned it was the best he'd seen.

* And if you want more, Sunderland Empire has more. It's just announced its panto for next year is Peter Pan. Tickets are already on sale.