DANCE AND THEATRE
By Mark Brown
Cinderella
Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
Four stars
Touring until February 2
This revival of Cinderella, choreographed by Scottish Ballet’s artistic director Christopher Hampson, is a delightful gift for the Season of Goodwill. Originally staged by the Royal New Zealand Ballet in 2007, it was first presented, to richly merited plaudits, by Scottish Ballet three years ago.
There is, in the show, a carefully calibrated combination of gracefulness, boldness and humour which takes its lead from Prokofiev’s beautiful score. Nowhere is that clearer than in designer Tracy Grant Lord’s extraordinary sets and costumes.
The enchanted rose garden, for instance, brings together a breathtaking gargantuanism (think a super-magnified floral painting by Georgia O'Keeffe) with the slightly unnerving sense of a mysterious forest. The royal ballroom is more akin to the set of a 1930s American musical movie than anything built for the House of Romanov.
The choreography is similarly creative. In this re-staging, the Stepsisters who persecute Cinderella are, rather than a matching, equally wicked pair, contrasted to fabulous comic effect.
Although clad in equally garish frocks, the duo embarrass themselves in quite different ways at the Prince’s party. Grace Horler’s tall sister is in hilariously desperate pursuit of the male aristocracy, her fingers extended like talons.
For her part, Kayla-Maree Tarantolo’s shorter sister is charmingly blundering, and more likely to end up on her graceless backside than on a royal throne. Both dancers prove that to be able to affect comically bad dancing this well, one must first be able to dance well.
Sophie Martin (who danced one of the Stepsisters three years ago) performs the title role with tremendous pathos, style and dynamism, opposite Barnaby Rook-Bishop’s beautifully measured dancing of the Prince. Marge Hendrick (a memorably vile Stepmother), Araminta Wraith (a perfectly ethereal Fairy Godmother) and Christopher Harrison (a palpably disconsolate, drunken Father) all impress in what is a marvellously complete ballet.
Now installed at Glasgow’s Theatre Royal, following a Christmas run in Edinburgh, this charming production will tour to Aberdeen, Inverness and Newcastle.
For tour dates, visit: scottishballet.co.uk
Aladdin
King’s Theatre, Glasgow
Four Stars
Ends today
Unlike at many other Scottish theatres, where the traditionally unconvincing bloke-in-a-dress that is the dame tops the bill, Glasgow’s big stage pantos bring women to the fore. At the SEC Armadillo the indisputable star of the show was the irrepressible Janette Tough (aka Wee Jimmy Krankie), and at Glasgow’s King’s Theatre the revels are led by the city’s own Elaine C Smith.
Playing the larger-than-life laundry owner Widow Twankey, the Rab C Nesbitt and Two Doors Down star welcomes the audience (her “chinas”, geddit?) to Old Peking and a Weegie-inflected script written by Mr Panto himself Alan McHugh (author of innumerable pantomimes, as well as the ever-brilliant dame at HMT in Aberdeen).
Smith’s Twankey is as amiable and sure-footed as ever as she tries to keep a grip on Johnny Mac in the role of the steamie proprietress’s silly son Wishee Washee. The memory of the late, great Gerard Kelly still hangs heavy over the King’s panto, but the mercurial Mac has done an impressive job of making the role of pantomime dafty his own.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the scene in which he and Smith perform a very funny tongue twister about a three-legged “wonky donkey” (even if it bears an enjoyably remarkable resemblance to a skit McHugh penned for this season’s show in Aberdeen). The excellent Smith and Mac enjoy top class support from George Drennan as a wonderfully malevolent Abanazar and Paul-James Corrigan as an Imperial Palace Guard who seems to have been headhunted from his previous job as a bouncer in Coatbridge.
Frances Maylee McCann is, delightfully, game for a laugh in the “straight” role of Princess Jasmine, alongside Lisa Lynch’s sparkling Scheherazade (slave of the ring) and sparkle-toothed Lee Dillon-Stuart (Aladdin). A weak Riverdance skit notwithstanding, this is another crowd-pleasing King’s pantomime.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here