Turbine theatre, London
With high-end performers, rude jokes and lashes of self-irony, there’s throwaway fun to be had – despite the Perspex screens
For those who associate pantos with fun for all the family and jam-packed theatres, Cinderella at the Turbine will feel like a stretch. It’s not for kids – it falls into that dreaded category, adult panto – and its masked audience are further insulated from one another by Perspex screens. Is it possible, in such circumstances, to enjoy oneself? Reader, it is. Lizzy Connolly’s production is proof against the unpropitious circumstances, whipping through this glass slipper (well, crystal Ugg boot) tale with good bad jokes, tight performances and lashes of self-irony.
Scripted by Jodie Prenger and Neil Hurst, this Christmas confection doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not. It’s Cinderella with rude jokes, shorn of characters (due to Boris’s rule of six) and – like the Prince’s ball, which is subject to Covid curfew – over almost before it’s begun. The storytelling is efficient bordering on clinical. Give or take a “look behind you” detour mocking the Cats movie, there’s little of the padding that can make family pantos feel like overstuffed stockings.