Aladdin The Musical

As I mentioned last week, my Mom was taking me to see Aladdin The Musical. It was amazing! One thing I really miss about city living is the opportunity to go to shows. I love the theatre, and musical theatre especially. I also miss being on the stage, but I think that ship has sailed.
(Picture to the right is a photo I took of a subway poster advertising the production.)

The musical version differed from the movie it was based on. I think this was for several reasons. I’m going to be very broad in my descriptions because I realise some readers may not want spoilers. Firstly, as the musical was longer there were new songs included and new plot points. They changed some of the original plot points and made some of the animal characters human. It would have been hard to have a monkey perform on stage for example, so Iago was a human. You could see easily why they made some of the changes they made. I liked how they incorporated elements of the original myth in the musical to help fill the void of some of the elements they had to change.

The costumes and sets were beautiful and so colourful. It was a live version of the Disney animated film so there’s not much for me to elaborate on story wise, except that a couple of things changed slightly. The overall message and story were mostly unharmed. There was of course a lot of singing and dancing and I was surprised, given the costuming choices, that while a wide variety of dance styles were show cased, belly dancing (which is a distinctly Middle Eastern invention) wasn’t. I wasn’t expecting world class belly dancing, but I would have thought in a musical set in an Arab kingdom that it would have had at least a cameo. So that was slightly disappointing.

Genie was my favourite character. I doubt that the production would have been as effective and entertaining without him. The actor did an amazing job and he was hilarious. I would have happily bought tickets for a Genie solo show. He was fantastic.

I had a blast and my mom bought me this gorgeous latte mug! I couldn’t take photos during the show for obvious legal reasons but it was well worth seeing. If you get an opportunity I recommend catching a session.

 

Apart from Aladdin and getting to catch up with my family another highlight of the trip was listening to Good Omens on the drive. It was fantastic! I gave it five stars on Goodreads. This is the review I left on Goodreads:

I thought Good Omens was really clever. It was a humorous take on traditional Christian apocalypse mythology and I really enjoyed it. It made my 5-hour car ride infinitely more enjoyable. BBC Radio 4 dramatisations of Gaiman’s works have not disappointed. This was equally as good as their Neverwhere production. I borrowed this copy from the library, but I may just buy it myself for my next road trip with my husband. Best described as a comedy of errors this dramatisation brought together and exceptional story and British humour. I’m looking forward to seeing the television series when it comes out.

Did you see Aladdin the Musical recently? Comment below and tell me what you thought 😊

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