Cinderella


The ticket was bought before Covid-19 was a thing, and the preparation and the worry about doing the ordinary things turned into a determination to get there and back safely. Andrew Lloyd Webber has faced critics since the beginning of his career, and perhaps nothing surpasses Jesus Christ Superstar in terms of his work. The man who’s brought people to the theatre in their billions went up against the rules controlling the pandemic and was determined somehow to put Cinderella on.

And although it is a shame to have to wear masks and see, and hear, only half an audience, it is an undoubted joy to see live theatre again. The ancient tale of the poor girl, the shoe, the prince and the fairytale ending has been twisted and turned by Academy Award winning writer Emerald Fennel. This is not a bloodthirsty tale like some of the versions, but it’s plenty sassy and sarcastic. Here Cinderella (Carrie Hope Fletcher) is dressed in black, with black hair and Doc Marten’s boots: ensconced in the house of her horrible stepmother and vapid half-sisters—both of them obsessed with appearance. The setting is the ancient fake-French town of Belleville, which is dominated by wealth and success: from the big market scene at the start to the mocking of preposterous masculine bravado surrounding the palace. There is an Ab Fab feel around some of it.  Cinderella doesn’t fit in, they don’t like her, and she doesn’t care. She offends the town by defacing a statue of the deceased Prince Charming—sound the 2020 klaxon!—of the Queen’s beloved dead son Prince Charming. The new heir apparent, Prince Sebastian (Ivano Turko), is not well liked and hates the trappings of the life he’s born into.


The town is almost ruined by the lapse in popularity caused by the vandalism of the statue. So the Queen decides to generate some excellent news by marrying off the Prince.  But there’s nobody suitable: he is a long-standing friend of Cinderella, and knows that she is not the marrying kind… Plus they are friends. But Cinderella’s sisters are content to not bother with marrying for love when they can accumulate wealth and be princesses. Cinderella trades insults with step-sisters and stepmother alike but she is ultimately so annoyed by their posturing that she decides to get one up on them by changing her appearance.


Well of course that doesn’t work, and whatever you know about Cinderella the route to the ending isn’t an option… She changes her appearance in desperation: desperate to get away from her family. He is forced to marry because royalty, and tries to engineer a marriage to someone he at least likes… loves. It becomes that classic story of two people who’ve always loved one another but have not confronted it. All this is of course conveyed with the Lloyd Webber standard massive ballad, but there’s also some fun pastiche music which, since we’re in fake-France, includes some fun accordion. The big song ‘Bad Cinderella’ begins the show, and the best song is possibly ‘I Know I Have A Heart Because You Broke It’—a neat lyrical hook from David Zippel. Carrie Hope Fletcher takes the performance so far that it recalls Evita and “Buenos Aires”. The two stepsisters have some profoundly contemporary attitudes, and Ivano Turko gives a solid performance of a defiant prince. The Stepmother (Victoria Hamilton-Barritt) is slightly underserved as she is part nasty woman and part faded starlet, or so it seems.


The idea of a person who doesn’t fit and is widely disliked for having different views is not at all new, but it does seem timely—and you’re not at this show for any more edge than the show has. There’s something about the twist and the pay-off in this show that is heartwarming in a way that’s unexpected, and although these are difficult times for the theatre hopefully Cinderella gets an audience.




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