IT’S A CINDERELLA ENDING FOR FUNNY GIRL NATASHA
FUNNY Girl understudy Natasha J. Barnes will go to the ball.
The actress famously stood in for leading lady Sheridan Smith at the Savoy Theatre earlier this summer after the star took a two-month break due to stress.
Now Natasha has been cast in the lead role in the Cinderella pantomime at the London Palladium.
She will star opposite Paul O’Grady as the Wicked Stepmother, Julian Clary as Dandini, Amanda Holden as the Fairy Godmother and Wendy Somerville and Suzie Chard as the stepsisters.
‘She’s going to play the principal girl, in a principal part,’ said Michael Harrison, who’s producing the Palladium show, and co-directing with Andrew Wright (who won plaudits for his choreography for Half A Six- pence at the Chichester Festival Theatre).
Harrison went to see Barnes in Funny Girl after Wright rang him and said: ‘I think I might have seen our Cinderella.’
After watching the show, he agreed with him.
‘Natasha will be feisty and funny, and she’s got that extra twinkle,’ he said. ‘When you’re on stage with O’Grady and Clary, you’ve got to hold your own.
‘For starters, she’s a proper actress; and she has a proper stamp of West End quality.
‘It has been a tremendous year for her: being discovered in Funny Girl, and following that by spending Christmas at the London Palladium.’
Cinderella will run at the Palladium for a limited period from December 9 until January 15.