Aladdin

Hackney's annual panto has become a legend in its own 11-year lifetime: it brings diverse London audiences and critics together in a rousing slang-filled chorus of approval that no other Hackney theatre, the Empire included, has been able to sustain all year round. That's one reason why this gorgeously gilded Frank Matcham building, which has been making a loss since its refurbishment in 2004, is to go dark in the new year. Still, director/writer Susie McKenna and Co have provided an 'Aladdin' that lights up these sad times like the magic lamp in the fable - if only the genie of the Christmas box office could single-handedly recover the Empire's fortune.

This year's 'Aladdin' fulfils the wishes of every age group. For grown-ups, Clive Rowe's great dame is, as ever, the big-boned, trumpet-voiced fairy on the top of the tree. His Widow Twankey flirts bashfully with us all; terrifies her sons (Anna Jane Casey's nicely trad principal boy Aladdin and Matt Dempsey's likeable CBeebies-style Wishy Washy); steamrollers David Ashley's outré baddie Abanazer into quivering erotic submission, and belts out Beyoncé knock-offs with more chutzpah (and way better sound quality) than the whole of Ridley Road market.

Panto, with its mix of old stories, new settings ('Ha-Ka-Ne' is the Peking borough here), borrowed chart hits and blue jokes, is always a vulgar wedding, but this one is a labour of love. McKenna's script creaks but the Eastern spectacle she creates (in which China meets Arabia meets Dalston) is truly a delight: a singing camel narrates, two fit genies (the irrepressible Tameka Empson and Kat B) run us through a whole gamut of crossover dance styles and, in one truly transporting scene, Aladdin flies off with a giant suspended dragon, which looks more than capable of plucking up whole parties of rowdy schoolchildren in its swinging claws.

A chorus of dancing pandas (don't ask) and a pair of comedy policemen are perfectly pitched for the little ones. After the delightful mayhem of the showdown and the old-fashioned fol-de-rol of the walkdown, this mixed bag of audience has one shared wish: to return next year.