Aladdin

Celebrity cameos and cringing at awful jokes are mandatory in the traditional British Panto. Hammed up so mercilessly what should be terrible becomes good – unfortunately this is a complete disaster. The cameos are, as expected, wooden. But so to are the rest of the performances. The rehearsals and multiple retakes of TV show how it is technology rather than acting skill which has put so many "stars" on our silver screen. "Griff Rhys-Jones " (qv) is one notable exception in his small role, as are two of the major characters: "Martin Clunes" (qv) as the evil Abanazer and "John Savident" (qv), as Widow Twankey, is proper Dame

I have fond memories of watching re-runs of this particular panto around the run up to Christmas, so revisiting it was a nice treat. The singing is, at times, cringe inducing and unnecessary, and I often found myself being put off by a lot of the timing, but the sets and over-the-top energy made it just worthwhile enough to stick through until the end. John Savident, Julian Clary and Martin Clunes all do wonderfully in their roles, though I think Patsy Kensit's casting was rather questionable- Not much to work with though, in her mild defense.

I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it, but if you were a child growing up in the UK, I'm sure you'll have at least vaguely warm memories of staying up and passing the time with this colorful, simple adventure.

I love a Panto. Totally over the top, silly, and just a bit of fun. This was not fun. The script was terrible, and very dull, you expect cheesy humour from a panto, but there didn't really even seem much attempt at humour at all. And the forty-fags-a-day voice and over-injected lips of Patsy Kensit didn't exactly give off a great panto Princess vibe.

I've seen Julian Clary in panto before and he was great, but I turned this monstrosity off before he even came on stage, perhaps he might've saved it, but it wasn't worth wasting another second of time on that hope..

I really enjoyed this pantomime. I thought all the actors were brilliant. Of all the ITV pantomimes shown I think this one is the best. I had it on video for a while a couple of years ago but my mum taped over it. It was on again this Christmas though and I thought it was great again.

I also thought that the singing was really good, it's quite hard to find people who can sing AND act these days. All the actors stayed in character well. The only thing I missed was the part where the children come on stage, unlike normal pantomimes this doesn't happen.

The writer has done extremely well to keep the traditional storyline but make it all funny. Watch out for a very funny scene between Paul Merton and Julian Clary. Anyway, all in all one of the best pantomimes I've seen (except Snow White at Woking this year and Cindarella at Woking a few years ago).