Aladdin

Everyman Palace Theatre, Cork

No one in the audience for this CADA/Everyman Palace presentation of

Aladdin

could possibly feel disappointed. The show, directed by Catherine Mahon-Buckley, delivers on almost every pantomime promise: the genie is huge and hugely amiable, the princess charming, the villain villainous, the hero dashing, the choruses loud and cheerful, and the magic carpet a wonder to behold.

There is the requisite mixture of contemporary and traditional; the small orchestra, under Eamon Nash, produces accurate and tuneful rhythms and accompaniments; and the junior and senior infants dance and sing almost everybody else off the stage.

It is all bright and brash but it is also, at times, quite beautiful. This is due to the impact achieved by set designer and painter Davy Dummigan, whose work on backdrops and proscenium is marked both by its delicacy and its detail. Such a degree of finish is impressive, and when matched by the glamour of the costuming, by Patricia Mahon and Anne Burton, seems to suggest a different level of production values to those adopted for the script and for the sound design.

The cultural confusion that marries Kyoto to Peking might be excusable in this oriental tale, but the unsympathetic vulgarity allotted to the Widow Twankey (“I’ll bust yer face for ya!” is a constant threat, along with invocations such as “Mother a God!”) defeats the humour of the role.

Equally, apparently untuned voices need amplification, but surely there should be as much skill and finesse on the sound desk as on stage if the correct balance is to be achieved? Only Shane Morgan's Aladdinmanages projection in both speech and song with competence, while everyone else, including Róisín O'Neill as Princess Jade, is helplessly in thrall to a desk determined to out-screech the rapturous uproar of the auditorium.

But that response is earned, not inflicted, and is a tribute to the successful feat of marshalling a large and energetic cast (the juniors are especially well-drilled) and crew in a performance distinguished by scenes that, as in the willow-pattern set, transform cliche into striking imagery. Until December 22, then from December 27 to January 10