The new staging of Frederick Ashton's Cinderella is back for its second season, which is always a crunch moment to judge whether a production has classic potential. This one, unfortunately, doesn't. Designers Toer van Shayk and Christine Haworth may have done well by Ashton in giving his ballet a period stylistic logic, but along with producer Wendy Ellis Soames they have intruded on the choreographer's vision with needless fussy nonsense. Why signal the entrance of the Winter Fairy with dry ice when all it does is obscure the languorous grandeur of her choreography? Why have a shiny cartoon moon across the backdrop when an ensemble of dancing stars are filling the stage with their own splintered, twinkling constellations? Ashton's choreography has more than enough wit and fantasy to furnish a fairy tale, and a serious staging of the ballet would respect that.
A really disciplined cast would, too. When this production was unveiled last year it starred a new pair of Ugly Sisters and this year Wayne Sleep and Anthony Dowell are back spinning yet wilder comic riffs around this squabbling monstrous duo. Consummate stage artists as they are, Sleep and Dowell are mesmerising to watch, but they are in danger of hijacking the show and they have the effect of encouraging less gifted members in the cast to aim way over the top. Giacomo Ciriaci, the Little Suitor, squints and squirms without realising that every mugged joke makes him less and less funny.
This is all dispiriting given that the dancing in Cinderella is as good as its been in ages (as is the playing, under conductor Boris Gruzin). The stylistic benefits of performing a solid season of Ashton this year are showing throughout the company. Outstanding on Thursday were Vanessa Palmer's blithely lyrical Fairy Godmother and Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg as the lovers. Cojocaru moves with such speed and abandon, she seems to generate her own light. Dancing with Kobborg, she shapes herself to the music and the love story with an intensity that makes you want to stand up and cheer them all the way to their happy ending.
· In rep until January 14. Box office: 020-7304 4000.
