Telegraph
4 stars out of 5
The last time the Lyric put on Cinderella, in 2019, the show was so busy virtue signalling on the identity issues of the day, it forgot to give its audiences a good time. Fortunately we’re back in more familiar territory this year with a cross-generation pleasing Cinders that most strikingly, and pleasingly, errs on the surreal. Buttons is a gerbil; there’s a lovely opening number featuring random characters from different pantos or stories (Red Riding Hood; Robin Hood), while the vibe of Tonderai Munyevu’s slick but soulful production is 1970s game show meets Daft Punk video. At one point our out-of-touch lost soul Prince, believing Shepherd’s Bush to be an actual bush, and keen not to be noticed, visits the market disguised as a shrub rose.
Writer Vikki Stone, who has appeared as many a villain in the Lyric Panto, serves up a script that finds the right balance between old and new. Cinders (an amusingly sceptical, down to earth Tilly La Belle Yengo) is no sap in the cellar but a sassy, defiant go getter who serves her sisters’ sherry and probiotic yoghurt smoothies with a dash of chilli sauce and has her own business running a stall, selling gerbil clothing, in Shepherd’s Bush market. She’s not above falling in love, though, with Damien James’s hapless Prince Henry – a terribly nervous, insecure toff in flock wallpaper suit and outsized cricket jumper who just wants to be ordinary, and who is forced to endure speed dating sessions at the hands of his plus fours-clad secretary, Minty, who is desperate to sell the story of his impending marriage to the tabloids. That Cinderella and her Prince imbue their odd couple romance with a palpable chemistry is both a charming bonus and a neat way of addressing a storyline that assumes Cinderella’s consent from the start.
The real weapon here though is Emmanuel Akwafo, who is fast emerging as a serious challenge to Julian Clary and Clive Rowe as queen Dame of London panto. Flaunting an array of naturally ridiculous costumes, including a lambswool dressing gown featuring toy lambs on the trim, his Lady Jelly-Bottom is knowingly absurd, inviting an audience member to crack an egg on his buttocks while sporting make up that eerily resembles a face lift gone wrong. There’s plenty of sport, too, from the two Ugly Sisters Gusset and Muffy – bargain budget Sloanes with strangulated vowels.
Meanwhile the musical references, in a nod to the parents rather than their offspring, are predominately retro, from Pulp to Cher to 1990s club anthem Everybody Dance Now. There is, however, rather too much X-rated bump and grind: twerking is one thing but there are a couple of routines that resemble a Megan Thee Stallion video. And Stone’s script has a bit of a hole in it – it doesn’t make sense for the Prince to hold a ball to find Cinderella when he knows full well she works at the market. Yet Munyevu directs with heart and panache, and with the occasional deft meta flourish, too: at one point the stage manager is revealed behind the scenery hoping against hope she might be offered a chance to sing. Great fun.