The Sunday Telegraph

Slick staging that gets its skates on

- Claire Allfree

Once upon a time, Torvill and Dean’s routine to Ravel’s Bolero was the stuff of Olympic fairy tale. Now it’s the stuff of panto. But, give the Olympian duo their due: they put on a sporting show as Cinderella’s fairy godparents King Crispin and Queen Juniper in Eric Potts’s version of the Charles Perrault rags-to-riches tale in which that iconic number of theirs is a central – and yes, very funny – running gag.

Admittedly, Torvill and Dean these days are rather more stately than they are sprightly, but with the help of custom-made roller skates that mimic blades, they still more than justify their status as top billing – a rare thing in modern panto. In a lavishly styled show that delivers a lot of bang for your buck, they eventually even perform their Bolero. More surprising is Dean’s gentle, rather good comic timing: he keeps trying to get down with the locals by talking Bristolian (there’s a lot of “Hello, my luvver”), while his catchphras­e “Get your skates on” is wittier on stage than it sounds on paper.

This is a pretty well-cast panto. Jarred Christmas as a hyperactiv­e (and very beardy) Buttons works the crowd with hurricane enthusiasm, although the running gag about him coming from New Zealand rather than Australia felt exhausted on its first outing, never mind the fifth.

There’s a brilliant turn from assistant director Samuel Holmes as Dandini, a wannabe opera singer with “more mince than a Christmas pie”. The Ugly Sisters may be gleefully bad, rather than outright appalling, but some of their barbs have real sting, including one directed at the audience, apparently only there “because Greggs is shut”. Yet, although this

Cinderella is a much more family friendly affair than the Julian Clary vehicle currently turning the air blue at the London Palladium, it feels more inspired by Disney than music hall. There’s so much glitter and purple and pink on stage you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d wandered into Disney’s animated mega-hit Frozen. The transforma­tion scene tries so hard to enchant that it left my heart stone cold. Potts’s script has its moments – there’s a terrific skit involving Buttons, the sisters and a tray of well-known chocolate bars. But if you’ve seen any other pantos produced by First Family Entertainm­ent you’ll recognise several recycled elements here. That’s fine, but panto is meant to have a whiff of anarchy about it, not feel like a corporate algorithm. This is a slick piece of work, but I don’t mean that entirely as a compliment. Until Jan 8. Tickets 0844 871 7615; atgtickets.com

 ??  ?? Surprising­ly good comic timing: Jayne Torvill and Christophe­r Dean bring on the Bolero. Below, Rhiannon Chesterman as Cinderella
Surprising­ly good comic timing: Jayne Torvill and Christophe­r Dean bring on the Bolero. Below, Rhiannon Chesterman as Cinderella
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