CINDERELLA
The
Old Vic, London SE1
Opened 9 December, 2007
****
Posh panto. The term has really caught on this year, as it grew
apparent that Ian McKellen's Widow Twankey at this address in 2004 and
'05 was not a freak outbreak but rather the harbinger of a fashionable
and lucrative sub-genre. And this show is as posh as they come. Fiona
Laird's production has no names to match McKellen's: the only stars
appearing here who are readily familiar to the public at large are
Sandi Toksvig as the Narrator and Pauline Collins as the Fairy
Godmother, but the rest of the cast is jam-packed with those whose
names, faces and copious talents are known to more regular
theatregoers. Its production values are of the toppermost, and it knows
its constituency precisely: one of the biggest laughs at the
performance I attended was for a line praising Tesco because "It keeps
the riff-raff out of Waitrose."
The gag is typical of a show which simultaneously celebrates and
lampoons itself and us, without either contempt or insufferable
smugness. Stephen Fry's script is very frequently filthier than
anything I have ever encountered in pantomime, yet never nudge-nudge
vulgar. At other moments it wears its recondite knowledge as lightly
as, well, a magical glass slipper; it even includes F.E. Smith's
antique witticism that "an 'ell of an 'eadache" requires a couple of
aspirates, in the full knowledge that the line will either zoom past
overhead or flop limply. This, too, is part of the fun. It is Fry
through and through, and one can hear and almost see him in the wildly
dissimilar figure of Toksvig, smoking-jacketed and moustachioed as she
is for her role. His song lyrics (nicely scored by Anne Dudley,
erstwhile supremo of The Art Of Noise) are similarly adroit, and
include a fine patter song about vacuous party folk and a poignant duet
in which Madeleine Worrall's Cinderella and Paul Keating's Buttons
share dreams of their ideal man... for in this version it's not Cinders
for whom Buttons' heart beats. This seam of gay gags, too, is
celebratory rather than cheaply derisory.
Stephen Brimson Lewis's sets are opulent whilst still resembling
cut-outs and oversized doll's-houses in best panto style. Mark Lockyer
and Hal Fowler make a fine pair of ugly sisters, Dolce and Gabbana;
Lockyer's Dolce is almost as grotesque as the real Amy Winehouse, to
whom in full slap he bears an unsettling resemblance. Joseph Millson
moves from heroic roles at the RSC to make a square-jawed Prince
Charming, and if Worrall (or Fry through her) tempts fate by asking the
audience, "Boys and girls, am
I colourless and insipid?", she never lacks appeal and gradually
acquires backbone. Even a raft of theatrical in-jokes are carried off
with an insouciance lacking in Bille Brown's script for McKellen last
time around. Where that often felt like an essay on panto, this is
almost Fabergé craftsmanship: not unreal compared to other
pantomimes, but rather hyper-real. It cannot be denied that, as a
production, it feels pretty pleased with itself... but it has
positively oodles to be
pleased about.
Written for the Financial
Times.
Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights
reserved.
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