Pantomime

Cinderella2: I Married a Numpty

Oran Mor, Glasgow

Mary Brennan

****

SLIPPER on the foot, ring on the finger - hurrah! Cinderella’s won the love-match lottery and a happy-ever-after life with her Prince. What’s that thud we hear? Uh-oh, that’s Cinders coming down to earth with a bump of horrid-awful disappointment. Prince Kelvie (John Kielty, all gosh-posh and snooty) keeps finding fault with her ‘common’ ways and keelie accent. Meanwhile Cinders (Joanne McGuinness) is realising she doesn’t want to be a royal celeb and wants out of there, absolutely NOW!

In a spirit of seasonal goodwill – and because there’s comic mileage to be had out of fairy-tale endings coming unstuck – writer Morag Fullarton and the Oran Mor team decide that Cinders deserves a second chance. Enter Buttheid – Kielty again, in a different wig and still carrying a torch for his old flame. Will their love re-ignite? Will Dave Anderson merrily embrace Dame-hood, apply a face-ful of garish slap, slip into a crinoline of epic proportions and come before us as Auntie Etta. There’s more cheeky sauce on offer in the shape of Claire Waugh’s Wan-Tooth Winnie, a pure dead envious besom whose hot pursuit of the Prince is delivered in short, slinky pants and thigh boots.

The plot breezily celebrates the ridiculous, a direction this hugely entertaining cast are equally happy to go in. Yes, there are topical swipes at current affairs and public figures but the audience-pleasing zest of this show is in the way it mixes panto traditions with the new magical fictions of today’s pop culture – Cinders’ ass-kicking transformation is wonderful, Buttheid’s shape-shifting kinda brings out his sweet’n’fruity side. Tremendous fun, tho’ as the opening song says – not for weans!