Capitol Theatre, Sydney
August 11, 2016

If you want to see a show that dazzles, dances and drips with more Swarovski than the QVB at Christmas, Aladdin’s your man. Coming in at a cool reported $15 million, the latest from the Disney stable is one show where you can see every one of those dollars paraded before your astonished eyes thanks to Bob Crowley’s sumptuous designs and Casey Nicholaw’s inventive hi-octane production. It’s as if the producer’s instruction was “Give me excess of it” and, Genie-like, an obedient creative team replied, “Your wish is my command!”

^{Arabian Nights}
By all accounts, despite box-office success and residual memories of Robin Williams’ show-stealing turn as the slave of the lamp, the 1992 hit cartoon on which this stage version is closely based had a bumpy road to success. The late, great lyricist Howard Ashman’s original conception was intended as a homage to the Hope Crosby Road Movies with a dose of The Thief of Bagdad and a louche Cab Calloway type as Genie. Late in the day, the producers nearly threw the baby out with the bath water, axing Aladdin’s mates and...