Christopher Hampson’s choreography introduces a few twists on the traditional fairytale to show that a modern Cinderella isn’t all about the money.
The prelude opens in gloom with mourners gathered at the graveside of the young Cinderella’s mother. She plants a rose of remembrance and as we watch it grow, reaching out its branches in silhouetted rays across a backdrop tinged with colour, we understand that time is moving on, bringing with it the winds of change.
The story of Act I is true to the original - Cinders’ father has remarried a domineering, hag of a woman with two spoilt and nasty daughters who all treat the wholesome Cinderella with contempt. Her father, unable either to come to terms with the death of his first wife or take control of his second, has turned to drink. However, it is made clear that Cinderella is still mourning for her mother - the recurring rose motif throughout this production makes this presence continually felt – and The Fairy Godmother’s appearance carries echoes of this lost maternal figure. There are also hints that Cinderella’s story has been pre-arranged, if not exactly preordained, from somewhere – or someone – behind the scenes. Or beyond the grave...
When the Prince finds Cinderella among the guests at the ball in Act II, the power-relationship of ‘the have’ bestowing kindness from on high to the poor little ‘have-not’ is significantly and refreshingly absent. It is, instead, the simple meeting of two lonely souls, both equally needy and similarly entranced. This point is driven home in the final scene of Act III when, after all the lost-shoe shenanigans, this boy and girl meet under her mother’s rose tree, away from the pomp and extravagance, just at one with nature, and each other.
This is an extremely stylish production, with design elements borrowed from art deco mingling with a late-Victorian/early-Edwardian feel, with strong overtones of the illustrious illustrator Arthur Rackham – the grasshopper, silk moths and spiders who weave and spin Cinderella’s ball gown at the Fairy Godmother’s behest in Act I, are particularly reminiscent of Rackham’s illustrations of Cobweb, Moth and the others from a Midsummer Night’s Dream.
However, the design does not always feel coherent and Cinderella looks unfortunately out of place when she turns up at the ball in a tutu where everyone else is in full-length dresses, bringing an uneasy sense that she had thought it was fancy-dress and decided to come as a ballerina. There is also the minor point that the Prince tries to find a foot to fit a slipper that Cinderella never actually wore – she clearly attending the ball in pale-pink pointe shoes and he chasing the owner of a slip-on silver, very sparkly, non-ballet shoe.
There are also some minor mishaps in the form of some occasional wobbles and lack of precision when finishing pirouettes and fouette turns, as well as just-missed synchronisation in some duets and group-work. However all of this can be forgiven as it is the first night after all, and the elements of beauty, comedy and sincerity apparent in both the design and the performance make for a thoroughly lovely family Christmas show.
5th – 31st December