When I heard that Pamela Anderson was going to start in the panto Aladdin this Christmas season I simply HAD to book tickets to go check the panto out. I love panto season in London and I haven’t gone to nearly enough during my stay here! Anyway, as Lana and Mike were in town I thought it was a great time to drag them along and expose them to something which is pretty quintessentially English.
Unusually for a panto one of the lead roles was actually rotated over the season of the panto with Ruby Wax, then Pamela, then Paul O’Grady and finally Anita Dobson taking on the role of genie of the lamp. If I could have spared the money and the time I would have liked to have seen all four versions for the no doubt customised jokes and bantering.
Before I get on to assessing what we thought of Pammie I wanted to make a comment about the panto itself. I 
absolutely loved it. There was a fantastic set, there was great audience involvement (which is what you expect of a panto) including dragging three kids up to the stage to perform!, there was a lot of witty one-liners (kudos to updates by the brilliant writers), and the musical score was pretty fine.
The cast were excellent. In particularly Brian Blessed as the evil Abanazar was truly the ultimate villain complete with evil laugh and sinister mocking and the dame Widow Twakney played by Jonathan D Elli and was hilariously and suitably a big large drama queen. Aladdin’s brother Wishee Washee as played by Paul Thornley played a pretty good comic foil too. I’ve got plenty of time also for Djalenga Scott who was extremely sexy as the Slave of the Ring.
As with most pantos Aladdin had a lot of pop culture references including even a skit targeting Jedward and I’m pretty sure I spotted Harry Potter somewhere on the stage at one point too! Can’t get more pop culturish than that.
But the true reason that Wimbledon Theatre was full tonight was clearly the debut of Pammie on the panto stage. Bless. The poor lady has never been involved in a panto before and I’m not sure she really has much stage experience. THAT red bathing suit made an appearance and the twins were out in full glory. Of course the writers also had to include scene of her “running provocatively towards you” and plenty of references to her not that successful romantic history.
Pammie didn’t appear until nearly the end of the first act but her arrival was worth the wait, most especially for the crowd reaction to her appearance in THAT bathing suit. Pammie, though she spoke very quickly at times and seemed to rush her lines, did an admirable job with her character. She played up to our expectations to the hilt and I thought added a bit of punch to the show. She’ll never win any Tony’s for the performance but I felt she was very charming and a great sport. The crowd loved her too.
A very enjoyable panto.
