The fact that thousands of people started booking for this pantomime a year ago - and similar numbers are doing likewise for next year - is a sure sign that, when it comes to Christmas, the Grand Opera House is getting it right.
The vast majority of the Northern Ireland public likes its entertainment served up straight, safe and familiar. And although director Derek Nicholls's brand of panto is flamboyant, camp and slightly subversive, it comes cleverly gift-wrapped in a format which has audiences baying for more, night after night. This year, however, there has been a subtle shift in treatment. The show is straight out of the standard repertoire for UK theatres, the story of the poor Chinese boy and his hardworking mother remains unchanged, there are good genies and bad uncles, lamps, rings and pretty people - and, of course, a happy ending.
But, for a start, there is no cheesy principal boy - Bennett Andrews's Aladdin is more Del Boy than oriental lackey; May McFetridge's Widow Twankey is less into washday drudgery than poking fun at Mo Mowlam and Jeffrey Donaldson's underwear; the music, dance and song are, on the whole, of a pretty high standard; and the whole thing goes with a swing and a belly laugh thanks to the antics of a father and son double act.
Clive Webb and Danny Adams are Sergeant Ping and Constable Pong, two daft, Victorian-costumed policemen, whose slick, old fashioned, saucy comedy takes the show back to the early traditions of pantomime, when the story was helped along by a succession of musical and comical turns. And so it is here. While top-billed Lisa Riley has her work cut out to keep pace with the mad, anarchic twists and turns of McFetridge, Webb and Adams do their own thing, bringing the audience on board and right behind the entire carry-on.
The evening winds into a big, gloriously gaudy finale, with the young couple deliriously united, good triumphant over evil and the audience heading for the box office to sign up for next Christmas.
Aladdin is at the Belfast Grand Opera House until January 19th; to book phone Ticket Shop on Belfast 90241919
