Although not a pantomime,[1] it played during the theatre's inaugural Christmas pantomime season of 1979/80, opening on 21 December 1979, and starred Richard Freeman as Aladdin, Joe Melia as Tuang Kee Chung (Widow Twankey), Aubrey Woods as Abanazar, Ernest Clark as The Emperor, Martin McEvoy as The Genie, Elisabeth Welch as Fatima and Christine McKenna as Badr-al-Badur.

"Instead of writing a pantomime – a form of theatre about which I know very little – I decided to make Aladdin a musical, and based it on the original story in the Arabian nights.

[4] The wicked wizard Abanazar, in his desert home in Morocco, summons the spirits to tell him how he may obtain the magic lamp, the source of all power.

Everyone, including the emperor himself, has a pretty shrewd idea of what has happened – but, as he explains in song to his daughter, "Loves's a luxury" that royals must forgo for reasons of state.

He quickly convinces the widow and her son (neither of whom is very bright) that he is the boy's long lost uncle and that he will make Aladdin rich.