Here is a sun-kissed panto to dispel any dreams of a white Christmas. Joe Tracini’s script is set in the seaside town of Crabbington Sands where a pastel-dressed ensemble make merry with Aimee Leigh’s breezy choreography. Cinderella’s sisters, gruesome twosome Lou and Lav (cue toilet-flush effect), could have stepped out of an outrageously saucy postcard. Designer Kirsteen Wythe gifts them lurid costumes best seen with UV protection. They include a beach ball-shaped dress, a bucket-and-spade hat, fairground-ride frocks and wigs seemingly woven with fishing rope.
Cinderella’s parents ran a local hotel that has been shuttered since she lost them, and she yearns for new adventures, a longing captured in an opening rendition of Natasha Bedingfield’s Unwritten. In the lead role, Georgia May Foote brings a big sister vibe to her crowdwork with the young audience that also underlines how Cinders sees the hopelessly devoted Buttons (Tracini) as a brother. But she is written to be a bit insipid, and there is little spark to her romance with a wannabe rock-star prince (Danny Hatchard, poised between buffoon and decent bloke).
This is a panto that proves as trad as turkey with all the trimmings. There’s plenty to enjoy, principally Owen Evans and Kenny Moore as the wicked sisters (with no stepmother in sight), but also some jokes so bad they’re brilliant, a “Shoe Must Go On” gameshow featuring the fabled slipper and a chorus of monks singing Ring My Bell. Tracini is a treat in that last routine, left dangling from a rope as an “air friar”. When he dashes through the stalls he is mobbed by the kids.
Hannah-Jane Fox gives us a pink-haired fairy godmother who is losing her magic touch, so that her couplets fail to find a closing rhyme. It’s a nice conceit in a script that is sparing with that panto chestnut of adults dabbling in youthful slang (“so cringe” mutters an unimpressed schoolchild in the row behind on one of those occasions).
If I had one wish from that fairy godmother it would be for Jeevan Braich’s Dandini to get more of the spotlight. Braich, a breakout sensation from Starlight Express who has a wonderfully rich voice, is given a big number after the interval that instantly raises the temperature. The plot peters out in that second half, which is in need of a big climactic set piece and hastily wraps up the story like a last-minute Christmas present. But Andrew Lynford’s bright, boisterous and warmly performed production leaves you not just with sore eyes and ringing ears, but a grin too.
