The Gaiety’s production ‘Aladdin’ is full of sexual remarks, which are unamusing for adults and boring for children
PANTOMIME IS a hybrid theatrical form – oh no it isn’t; oh, yes it is. But that doesn’t mean that pantomime is not important. Pantomime is very important. It should be a pleasure for all who attend it. For the ladies and the gentlemen, and for the girls and boys.
Last Thursday evening we gathered, at 6.30pm or thereabouts, in the Gaiety to watch Aladdin. A large number of us were under seven years of age – and not just mentally. There were quite a few magic swords – thoughtfully sold outside the theatre – in the audience. We were a very positive, if slightly distracted crowd.
Counting mammies and daddies and participating professionals – there were several large groups present, of which at least one came from a creche in Meath, with attendant female minders; and the little boy sitting beside me seemed to be visiting the pantomime with his Asian maid – it would be fair to say that the majority of the audience was female.
Now I realise that, traditionally, there has to be something for the daddies at the pantomime. Oh no there hasn’t; oh, yes there has. There have to be ladies in what used to be spangly tights for the daddies, whilst the mammies are left with Buttons.
In Britain in the old days, the principal boy was played by a woman with terrific legs. But at the Gaiety, Aladdin was played by a handsome young man from Dungannon called Fra Fee. The Widow O’Twankey, on the other hand is played, very well, by Gary Mountaine, a name which in itself would qualify its bearer to belong in pantomime. In fact Gary Mountaine is very funny and nice with the kids in the audience.
The number of speaking roles for adult females in this production of the pantomime is . . . two. Oh no it isn't; oh, yes it is. Princess Jasmine and the sexy Genie. So-Chi, the princess's handmaiden who ends up with Wishee Washee – poor girl – is not so much shy as mute. So that's it, in this tale of derring-do, in this amazing adventure. That's what the little girls have to identify with. If the adult females have 20 lines between the three of them, I'd be surprised. The princess has to sit tight and sing True Colours, whilst silent female dancers with no skirts do acrobatics as they hang upside down from red curtains. Princess Jasmine doesn't even get to join Aladdin on the spectacular flying carpet journey which ends Act 1.
The Genie appears at the end of Act 1 and as a genie, I have to say, she errs on the sexy side. Oh no she doesn’t; oh, yes she does. When the genie tells Wishee Washee: “Your wish is my command,” Wishee Washee turns to the audience with a leer and says “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Aladdin is full of this type of sexual remark, which is unamusing for the adults and either boring or confusing for the children. This pantomime, in which the cast and the band work extraordinarily hard, would make an excellent study for some enterprising media student.
There are a couple of references to Brian Cowen. When someone is mean to her, the Widow O'Twankey asks if they are Bill Cullen, of the Irish Apprenticeprogramme. The Magic Cave where Aladdin finally finds the lamp is likened to I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. The Cape of Inspiration is described as being "near RTÉ", although not one among us knew what that remark meant.
Strangest of all, when Aladdin and his mother come into their fortune – “I’ll be as rich as Michael O’Leary,” says the Widow O’Twankey – she comes out with new, fluorescent breasts.
She’s had a boob job with the money. But it is a bit difficult to laugh at a pair of obviously false breasts in Act 2 when you’ve been asked to take another pair for granted in Act 1.
I don’t object to any of this. But I do object to the assumption that adults will be catered for simply with weary innuendo. Jokes about squeezing a girl’s oranges, or how you can’t get virgins in the Virgin Megastore, don’t really seem appropriate.
These are jokes that scruffy teenagers would blush to make, even to each other.
And this is before the only one of the emperor’s servants to have the power of speech turns out to be a homosexual character of a type of campness that hasn’t existed since Larry Grayson died.
It is very interesting that pantomime should be so lazy in its treatment of homosexual men, as the action is conducted by men with false breasts and young characters who think that making your friend sit on something that will go up his bottom (don’t ask) is a terribly funny thing to do.
It has to be said that the producers of the pantomime were alone in that belief. No one laughed as first Wishee Washee and then his friend Garda You Pong sat on the stool with erectile properties.
Similarly the cruelty meted out to Wishee Washee, who is very small, drew silence from the kids around me, perhaps because they were so small themselves.
Cruelty and smut are the very stuff of pantomime but, as the Widow O’Twankey might say, it depends how it’s done.
It is strange how upsetting it is to find unthinking sexism and simple ineptitude where you least expect it. Oh no it isn’t; oh yes it is.