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Pantomime is essentially an entire genre of storytelling entertainment in which you’re basically only allowed to use one of four different stories. So fair play to TRSE for coming up with a truly original take on ‘Cinderella’ for this year’s Christmas offering. Unfortunately, it’s not really worked.
In this new version by respected playwright Leo Butler, the fairytale action is relocated to Ancient Egypt – or at least, a Londonified version of it called Stratford Egypt, ruled by Gigi Zahir’s venal Queen Cleopatra and her two heavily botoxed daughters Chrishell and Amanza (Micah Holmes and Tendai Rinomhota –literal Ugly Sisters have gone out of fashion these days). It’s also the home to Gracie McGonigal’s peppy Cinderella, who publishes a manifesto telling people to be nice to each other, which results in Cleopatra exiling her to the laundry room, with only Sphinx – a talking cat – there for company.
This is all good fun in theory, and the Egyptian setting is colourful and lively rather than weird or orientalist or whatever. But Butler and director Eva Sampson – neither of whom have much panto experience – simply don’t hit the beats necessary to pull off their grand makeover. The characters are ill-defined (there isn’t really a villain or a dame), there’s not much audience interaction until the second half, it kind of assumes a rudimentary understanding of who Cleopatra and Julius Caesar (Alex Wadham) were, and even if you’re up to speed with your basic classics, it’s fundamentally difficult to work out what’s going on half the time because the plot jumps about like a glitching game.
I watched it on a primary school matinee, and the young audience seemed genuinely baffled for most of the first half – which I could relate to. And that’s on the panto: I’d seen a schools matinee at the Lyric Hammersmith a few days previously, and the kids were rapt, despite numerous jokes going over their heads, because it had hit all the right beats.
A snappy, more interactive second half got the children onside, and it has its moments generally: Kathryn Bond’s Sphinx was good understated fun, charismatic young performer (McGonigal) demonstrated real star quality as Cinderella, and Charlotte Espiner’s neon-enhanced sets were really nice. But despite the steadying presence of longtime composer Robert Hyman, this year’s TRSE panto felt like a demonstration in the perils of a rookie team thinking they can shake up the panto landscape without nailing the basics.