When glitz met Glasgow

Aladdin, which played at the Empire, is an intriguing chapter in Scottish theatre history, partly because it represents a brief dalliance between Glasgow panto and London's West End, and mainly because it boasts a tantalisingly impressive pedigree. A bit of detective work reveals that the pedigree gets even better when you trace it back to its origins on American TV.

It wasn't flagged up to Scottish audiences, who presumably reckoned that old Mr Porter had penned such songs as Come to the Supermarket In Old Peking and No Wonder the Taxes Are High specially for them, but the £100,000 production that wowed them began life as a TV special, on CBS in February 1958. Not only did it have the most sophisticated of American songwriters as composer but it also had the doyen of American humorists, SJ Perelman, as the writer of its book, costumes by the celebrated Hollywood designer Irene Sharaff and a cast featuring Basil Rathbone, Cyril Ritchard (the voice of Captain Hook in Disney's Peter Pan) and – in the title role – Sal Mineo (of Rebel Without a Cause fame).

In December 1959, the impresario Harold Fielding – described by Johnny Beattie as "the Cameron Mackintosh of the day" – produced Aladdin at the Coliseum in London. To translate this American TV production into a pantomime he hired British writer Peter Coke to adapt Perelman's script and cast Bob Monkhouse as Aladdin and Ronald Shiner as the Widow Twankey. Extra songs were required to pad the it out, so three less-well-remembered Porter songs from earlier shows were shoe-horned in. And as if all that wasn't enough of a draw, the choreography was by Helpmann, popularly remembered as the Childcatcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Two years later, the production came to Glasgow. "It was," recalls Beattie, "totally different to any previous panto." It had higher production values and more expensive, lavish costumes and sets: "These were London West End sets."

Furthermore, it was being staged in the Empire, which was not a pantomime theatre at the time but seated more than 2000 people.

Once again the book of the show was rewritten – this time by John Law, who had written the hugely successful A Wish for Jamie the previous year – for a Glasgow audience. For Aladdin's Scottish debut (indeed, its last known production), choreographer Peter Darrell devised and produced a ballet sequence set in the Highlands and danced by the acclaimed ballerina Anne Heaton and the Western Theatre Ballet. It simply reeked with class. Or, as Beattie puts it: "I think people realised when they were coming to see Cole Porter's Aladdin, it wasn't going to be a haw-maw pantomime. You know what I mean? I think it brought in people who wouldn't normally have gone to see a panto."

Beattie's memories of Aladdin are eclipsed by those of the following year's Harold Fielding spectacle, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. What defined the Aladdin experience for him was the bond he formed with his co-star Duncan Macrae, who played Widow Twankey to his Wishee-Washee.

Beattie had been a fan of Macrae since he saw him in the famous Citizen's Theatre production of The Tintock Cup in 1949. They had met on a few occasions but Aladdin marked the first time the two men worked together. "Big Macrae and I got on great," says Beattie. "We had adjoining dressing rooms and the two doors just stayed open all the time and we'd shout through to each other."

Slipping into his Macrae voice, he shouts: "Oi, John come through. Mary's got the kettle on."

He continues: "Between the matinee and the evening performances he and I used to go round to Ferrari's, which was the famous restaurant at the time, and we'd have a meal. Big Macrae was a real character – and he would always shout, as the waiter went away: 'Don't forget the asparagus tips!' Every single time. He was a genuine character, Big Macrae. I can't be doing with these people that play at being characters.He was the real McKay. From the word go when I saw him in The Tintock Cup I thought he was phenomenal so the pleasure of working with him was very special."

Indeed, Beattie proudly shows off the inscribed quaich that Macrae gave him on the last night of the Aladdin run. By rights, it should have been a magic lamp. But then the show was hoochy with lamps. Frank Machie, the manager of the Empire, was quoted in the Evening Times saying "There are enough lamps in this production to light half of Glasgow!"

The review in The Glasgow Herald reflected the enthusiasm of public and the press for this new, upmarket take on panto. Almost a whole column of the newspaper was dedicated to Christopher Small's analysis. He concluded Fielding's production "cannot be accused of departure from tradition" and was "a fine and glittering evening".

Small wrote: "Tradition, as has been said, is carefully observed. The Widow Twankey (Duncan Macrae on a tricycle) is there, with Wishee-Washee (Beattie) to open the show; the Chinese laundry now has a row of washing machines, but the Cave of Jewels, the Palace of Light are pretexts for set-pieces, dances and transformations of quite remarkable beauty."

However, Small reckoned both Macrae and Beattie were inhibited by the "smoothness and splendour of the production" – although he singled out as a highlight Macrae's "beautiful brief appearance as 'Maria Gallus', singing that celebrated aria A Wee Cock Sparrer Sat on a Tree."

Beattie wasn't terribly at home in the Harold Fielding production that came to Glasgow the next year. In Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, he played Buttons. "The problem was I didn't look like Buttons," he laughs. "Buttons is usually a wee Ronnie Corbett or a wee Charlie Drake type ... I wasn't cast wisely. A couple of actress friends came in to see me in the show and they both said: 'Oh, if I'd been Cinderella I'd have stayed in the kitchen with Buttons!' After that, I decided that it was time to get the funny frocks on – and I started my career as a panto dame.

"The reason I probably remember Cinderella better than Aladdin is because I had to sing so much, and I'm no' a singer. I sang three songs in the kitchen scene to Cinderella."

He may not be a singer, but Beattie doesn't need much encouragement to croon one of the numbers from the show, though not the one about a nice cup of tea, which presumably wasn't penned by Oscar Hammerstein.

Cinderella, like Aladdin, was a reworking of the production that played in London, with Tommy Steele and Jimmy Edwards, and it too attracted impressive audiences – though not impressive enough to save the Empire from demolition. As Cinderella packed them in, discussions between Harold Fielding and Glasgow's Lord Provost Jean Roberts were taking place about a replacement for the Empire in the form of a 1500-seat theatre in a £22 million skyscraper. According to a the Daily Record in December 1962, "this complex would also include a restaurant, bars, shops and offices."

Just four months after the end of Cinderella's run, in March 1963, the Empire closed its doors for the last time – and was seen out in style by an all-star gala night directed by Johnny Beattie and featuring Duncan Macrae as the Spirit of the Theatre.