CINDERELLA AND THE ENCHANTED SLIPPER Watermill Theatre to 12 January.

Newbury

CINDERELLA AND THE ENCHANTED SLIPPER
by John Doyle. Music by Sarah Travis

Watermill Theatre, Newbury To 12 January 2002
Runs 1hr 40min One interval

TICKETS 01635 46044
Review Timothy Ramsden 30 December

A magical mix of music and action gives new life to the well-known story.The Watermill has given birth to a line of superb music theatre pieces from director John Doyle. One, The Gondoliers, hit the West End last summer and there's still time to catch the latest, a small but perfectly-formed Christmas piece.

It's easy to wish it was longer; there are plenty of implications to pull out of Lord Patrick Penniless – well performed by Andrew Mackintosh after the injury of original cast member Mike Afford, though he's very young to be on a second marriage especially with Karen Mann's substantially mature Petulant.

And Rebecca Jackson's one sister isn't so much ugly as over-heavily into fashion accessories. It's clearly parental pressure which makes her behave as she does. Doyle hints at Petronella as more than your average ugly sister by having the prince search out the most musical lady in the land. While the singing violin of Charlotte Roach's Cinderella must win by a mile (and she's the sole blonde lighting up a naughty world of dark-haired creatures), Jackson's Petronella follows splutters on cymbals and tuba with a neat sax. riff.

There's surely something psychosomatic in Petronella's gruff-voiced terseness. It becomes clear when she reveals repressed benevolence, not the soupy, sweety sort but a human longing to escape her mother's heavy thumb and flower as an individual.

A song about a time when imagination was free frames the action (overall, the lyrics are the show's weakest aspect). At times in act one a need to satisfy panto expectations seems to work against imaginative story-telling. But the sheer beauty of the music-laden, magically lit action wins over. The near-ritualistic emergence of Cinders' ball-going apparatus is deeply moving, allowing an understanding of how each element in costume and set helps transform the heroine's low life-expectations.

The strength she draws from her mother's memory is made clear. This is the reason Lady Petulant hates her. And in her misery, Cinders resorts for strength to a waltzing mother-figurine, which she is finally able to shut away after she has won a new life with her Prince.

Lord Patrick Penniless: Andrew Mackintosh
Prince Charming: Michael Howcroft
Petronella Penniless: Rebecca Jackson
Lady Petulant Penniless: Karen Mann
Cinderella: Charlotte Roach

Director: John Doyle
Designer: Mark Bailey
Lighting: Richard G. Jones

2001-12-31 16:31:00