A CRESCENT moon set in a purple sky, that fabled lamp held aloft by unseen hands… this will certainly be an Arabian night to remember.

And from the very moment the curtain rises, we can see immediately that choreographer David Bintley has chosen a broad canvas on which to paint his story.

But it is destined to become yet more magnificent, once the even bolder brushstrokes of Carl Davis’s dramatic score send their shock waves of sound through the auditorium, crashing detonations that almost have the feel of a 1950s Western screen saga.

These are the heralds, conductor Paul Murphy’s power chords that leave us in doubt whatsoever that we are about to witness the birth of another Bintley masterpiece.

The daredevil doyen of dance has chosen his cast with all due diligence. Cesar Morales delivers a stupendously convincing Aladdin, a mixture of youthful guile and North African bazaar Jack-the-Lad.

And it’s not only lamps he strokes, either. For there are plenty of people he also manages to rub up the wrong way, too - the Mahgrib for example, played with storybook oriental fiendishness by Iain Mackay.

But the course of true love never runs smooth and so we are naturally on the edge of our seats waiting for our boy from the wrong side of the Kasbah to take Princess Badr al-Budur – Nao Sakuma at her coquettish best - in his arms and then scorch the boards with some mind-blowing pas des deux.

And it happens, as expected. Except that– and I barely dare utter such heresy - the golden pair’s thunder has already been stolen earlier by Ambra Vallo and Tyrone Singleton’s fabulous routines which create more smoke than a thousand incense burners.

They danced as if their lives depended on it, serving up an utterly astonishing sequence that was jam-packed with those trademark Bintley lifts. My money’s been on Singleton for a long time and as far as I’m concerned, this was him fulfilling his very own eastern promise.

Meanwhile the Genie – or Djinn of the Lamp, to use what is presumably the technical term – is portrayed with a mixture of mystery, mischief and malevolence by Tzu-Chao Chou, providing a fitting counterpoint to national treasure Marion Tait, performing sterling work as the molly-coddling mother hen of a mum who only wants the best for her boy.

Oh yes, what an Arabian night indeed. This was the British premiere of David Bintley’s Aladdin and literally explodes in a feast of colour, thanks to the tonal richness of Sue Blane’s costumes enhanced by the consummate artistry of Mark Jonathan’s lighting and Dick Bird’s sumptuous sets.

Packed with visual jokes and breath-taking effects, this is a fast-moving poem of epic proportions. So my advice to you is to climb aboard that magic carpet, say the magic word… and set course for the second city without further delay.

Aladdin runs until Saturday (February 23) at the Birmingham Hippodrome.

John Phillpott