27 – 29 March

Presenting top class classical ballet can be difficult when audiences are now familiar with more contemporary and innovative crowd pleasers, including those within Mathew Bourne productions. However, although choreographed by Sir David Bintley more than 15 years ago, this version shouts freshness and joy at every turn.

We open with a sombre vignette of a funeral. Cinderella’s mother is dead, and she stands bereft in front of the monument with her still grieving father. Despite the scene lasting only a couple of minutes it serves to establish a foreboding melancholy. This is clearly going to stretch beyond a mere pantomime fairy tale telling. A black frame reduces the stage size and helps pinpoint the emotion. Cinderella and her stepsisters are portrayed as children, and when her father tries to comfort her, the wicked stepmother pushes him away.

From there we move to Cinderella’s new reality, the kitchen representing her life, virtually enslaved and at the beck and call of her nasty siblings. Beatrice Parma’s Cinderella is vulnerable, slight, visibly miserable and tormented by Ellis Small and Oliva Chan Clarke. The latter is fitted with sufficient padding to make the comedic turns even funnier.

Parma’s dancing is a joy to behold, especially as a counterpoint to the mental cruelty to which she is subjected. Her grace is demonstrated by a flawless bourrée when she enters the ballroom. Other highlights feature Enrique Bejarano Vidal’s dashing Prince, full of exciting nimble glissades and grand jetés. While Daria Stanciulescu is the epitome of an elegant, wicked stepmother looking as if she could wield her cane with murderous intent.

A word about the design by John Macfarlane. Each scene looks fabulous, from the drab, workaday kitchen to the sumptuous ballroom and, most exciting of all, the huge ticking clock mechanism which counts down to midnight in thrilling Hitchcockian style. The ballroom scenes are stunning, the dancers filling the stage but never getting in the way of the story. The stepsisters’ ridiculous costumes and fake bad dancing almost steal the show at this stage; and finally the narrative strength comes to the fore when the clock starts to chime. The costumes are fabulous throughout, and Prokofiev’s score, conducted by Paul Murphy, shifts effortlessly from each distinct character to sudden changes of pace.

Although lacking the more surprising innovative techniques of other modern representations, this production still triumphs, especially when it balances pure technical brilliance with the more knockabout vaudevillian comedy.

★★★★☆  Bryan J Mason, 28 March 2025

Photography credit: Johan Persson