In 2021, Camila Cabello was a screen Cinderella with dreams of opening a boutique for her dresses. Last year, the film Sneakerella reimagined the fairytale heroine as a boy who longs to design trainers. Lyric Hammersmith’s Cinders outdoes them both. Tilly La Belle Yengo plays her effervescently as a self-declared “boss lady”, flogging her range of knitwear for rodents at a Shepherd’s Bush Market stall.
Respect to the design studio Good Teeth for their own preposterous costumes, including the snug furry suit worn by a gerbil who starts the party with a rejig of Pulp’s Disco 2000, here reflecting the year Cinderella was born. In the blink of a false eyelash, this pop-powered panto is on to Bootylicious when Emmanuel Akwafo makes quite the entrance, with an immaculate golden mane and a voice trembling with unseemly desires, as stepmum Lady Jelly Bottom. Pity the chap in the front row whose jumper screams “husband material” to her.
So far so fun, but Tonderai Munyevu’s production of Vikki Stone’s script is never turned up to 11 and draws more smiles than belly laughs. A spot of audience participation to test the firmness of LJB’s buttocks looks set to provide a cringe-comedy humdinger but peters out, and Cinderella’s pranks on stepsisters Muffy (Charlie Cameron) and Gusset (Meghan Treadway) are tepid. While you don’t look to panto for logic, it’s hard to see why this Cinderella wouldn’t happily stroll into the ball anyway or why the Prince (Damien James), having met her at the market, doesn’t return to her stall the morning after midnight strikes instead of going door to door.
The music, composed and arranged by Corin Buckeridge and played by a four-piece band, often provides high-energy set pieces choreographed by Arielle Smith. Mambo No 5 is amusingly retooled as a speed-dating event for the prince, Sam Smith’s Unholy is catnip for Akwafo and the catchy M.A.R.K.E.T. (with music and lyrics by Stone) brings together visitors from other fairytales. Cinderella’s magical makeover from Fairy (Jodie Jacobs) is seamlessly done and Stone cleverly writes in other transformations in a show that is buoyant, playful and daft without quite delivering that delirious panto rush.
At Lyric Hammersmith, London, until 6 January
