![]() ![]() And after so much time waiting for this finally to happen, Lloyd Webber can take heart from the fact he actually made the earth move for us. It's still a family musical, though and my 11-year-old certainly took it all in her stride. And hen parties may like to know there's a Chippendales-style set piece executed by the Queen's guard: a troop of buff and bare-chested swordsmen. The Queen and the Stepmother scratch each other's eyes out (metaphorically speaking) in the comic blackmail song I Know You. Turco gets a good yodel in a typically lush torch song, Only You, Lonely You, before Hope Fletcher unleashes the show's biggest, stringiest, swooniest number, Far Too Late (To Sing A Love Song).Ĭinders' and Seb's romance is all very earnest, but the real fun is had by the baddies. In the title role, Carrie Hope Fletcher delivers a poke in the eye to the old-fashioned Disney idea of feminine virtue: a sarky, surly gothic Cinders who's more into black lipstick and Doc Martens than pumpkin carriages and glass slippers ![]() But her acoustic duets, riffing with Sebastian, afford sweeter, more subtle moments. The first belter is Hope Fletcher's anthem of mock self-reproach, Bad Cinderella. But it's Lloyd Webber's music that does the heavy lifting, with one of his most varied scores. There's a glittering parade of sumptuous kitsch and cartoon sets for the picture-book town of Belleville. until his mother demands he make a suitable marriage. Played by Ivano Turco, he is Cinderella's secret BFF and beloved. But he is happily replaced as the love interest by his baby brother Sebastian. Hunky Prince Charming, incidentally, has gone missing in a long, almost three-hour plot. One is the Queen of Cinderella's hometown, Belleville, played by a gleefully giddy Rebecca Trehearn as a reincarnation of Marie Antoinette (and yes, she eats cake!).īut Cinders' stepmother is even more fun played by Victoria Hamilton-Barritt as a cross between Joanna Lumley and Sir Alan Sugar, savouring each withering put-down like a champagne truffle. It's also lavishly costumed - especially for the show's rival divas. The show itself, meanwhile, is basically an out-of-season panto: joyously vulgar and fabulously catty. Thanks to a scorched earth re-write of the fairy tale by Emerald Fennell, who won an Oscar for the revenge movie Promising Young Woman, she's a heroine for the age of Gogglebox, Love Island and #MeToo feminism. In the title role, Carrie Hope Fletcher delivers a poke in the eye to the old-fashioned Disney idea of feminine virtue: a sarky, surly gothic Cinders who's more into black lipstick and Doc Martens than pumpkin carriages and glass slippers. He had threatened to do time rather than submit his theatres to government Covid regulations for a moment longer.īut now that Cinderella, his latest musical, has opened at last to packed houses - and looks set fair to stay that way - he can pop his orange jumpsuit back in the drawer. Jailbirds languishing in HM prisons can relax - it looks as though Andrew Lloyd Webber will not be joining them after all. Cinderella (Gillian Lynne Theatre, London) ![]()
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