Aladdin at Carlo Diacono Junior Lyceum, Zejtun

This year, the production team at Carlo Diacono Junior Lyceum of Zejtun decided that Aladdin would be staged as their 16th pantomime. They could not have made a worse choice!

As soon as the Grand Vizier found out, he was furious. He insisted that they change the script so that he would be the victor in the end. They tried to explain that the villain always loses in pantomimes, but to no avail. He threatened he would not take part, and, well... a panto without a villain would not have been a panto at all!

But that was only the beginning. The princess informed the team that she wanted to be promoted queen! But how could Aladdin marry a queen? Everyone knows that Aladdin marries a princess! She would not have any of it. She also threatened to leave, and, well... a panto without a princess would not be a panto at all!

But the Sultan found out about this, and he said it was going to be a problem for him because the Princess could not be both his daughter and his queen at the same time! He kept on at it and finally told the team that he would forget all his lines, and maybe even forget to turn up for the shows, and well... a panto without a sultan would not have been a panto at all!

Then the genie came into the picture! He said that he was fed up with an eternity of servitude and humility! He wanted to be evil for a change. Even though the team tried to tell him that being evil was the villain's job, he would not back off. He said that unless they did as he requested, he would just not come out of the lamp, no matter how hard they rubbed, and well... a panto without a genie would not have been a panto at all.

And it got worse when all the others found out about it! They all started threatening as well.

Aladdin said that he did not want to go climbing around dark caves. The Dame said she was fed up with fast costume changes for every scene. The slave insisted that he should be freed. The monkey said it preferred to be a parrot. The soldiers did not want to soldier on, the servants would not serve time, and the crowd, would not crowd around the market.

The director got fed up with all of this and decided that he would not direct, and well... without Aladdin, the dame, the slave, the monkey, the soldiers, the servants, the market crowd and the director, there would not have been a panto at all!

The team just did not have a choice - they had to try and please everyone. They hope that at least they managed to do that with the audiences who attended the eight shows held between December 14 and 21.