United Kingdom Cinderella: Cliffs Pavilion, Southend-on-Sea, Essex, 16.12.2025. (JPr)
Opening with the disembodied voice of Rylan’s mom, Linda, (sounding oddly like Michael Crawford’s Frank Spencer!) entreating the packed Cliffs Pavilion viewers: ‘Are you prepared for a very good time [cries of “Yes”], oh no you’re not [“Oh yes we are!’], that’s significantly better, now sit again and revel in this 12 months’s magical pantomime Cinderella!’ Everybody definitely appeared too after a 100-minute present stuffed with terribly proficient performers, music and far belly-laughter-provoking silliness which proves the right escapism for these darkish winter nights and the ills of the present world.
Now the very factor I queried concerning the pantomimes on the Cliffs over the past two years hampers this Cinderella for only a few minutes and that’s telling the precise story. Lately, J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan was all about Joe Pasquale’s – admittedly hilarious – comedy shtick that he does no matter regardless of the panto is meant to be. Final 12 months, the fairytale occasions of Jack and the Beanstalk – together with a few of the characters – had been eclipsed by the megawatt star energy of Rylan making his panto debut. The joke was on him an excessive amount of of the time and there have been fixed (supposed) telephone calls to him from his mom interrupting the present.
Ahead to this 12 months, Rylan got here on the stage because the Fairy Godfather brandishing his magic wand within the first of an outrageously flamboyant sequence of winged costumes; and with only a transient ‘Hallo Southend!’ stated ‘I suppose now I’m again in pantomime, higher begin talking in rhyme’ and he launched ‘the story of Cinderella and her good-looking, charming Prince.’ Because the night enfolded, I used to be again to the fantastic ‘conventional’ pantos I noticed on the London Palladium when very younger with, sure, star turns, comedy skits and glowing vibrant costumes, but with a sure reverence to this most British of entertainments. (Admittedly, the garish units appeared the identical ones as for my final Cinderella on the Cliffs Pavilion in 2021 with Brian Conley as Buttons.)
Quickly we meet Cinders – the participating Oona Cox – singing ‘While you’re alone and life is making you lonely you may all the time go to Southend’ to the tune you’ll recognise as ‘Downtown’. In fact, listening to concerning the well-known pier, cockle and mussels, and fish and chips is simply the primary of many native references, together with Rylan ‘coming from a land faraway, Stanford-Le-Hope!’ There are the ‘aren’t we beautiful?’ – in their very own minds! – sisters Hernia and Verruca Hardup making Cinders’s life a distress and who’re on the hunt for a wealthy man. Their gaudy costumes get extra ridiculous as issues go on. Suggesting that if Cinders tells tales about them to their father Baron Hardup she’ll be ‘geography’, ‘Don’t you imply historical past?’, ‘Don’t change the topic!’ Hernia replies, and from that – and Buttons’s ‘What’s a Shih Tzu?’ ‘It’s a zoo with out animals’ – you get the baseline of a few of the comedy, however it can nonetheless make you smile. Innuendo is saved to the minimal and whereas Ross King as Buttons introduces himself – singing The Proclaimer’s ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) – with references to him being on TV’s Lorraine present and Strictly Come Dancing and extra, it isn’t overdone.
Baron Hardup explains how he works on the palace as a courtroom jester and the very humorous Steve Hewlett, is one in every of a dying breed, a ventriloquist! (I wonder if it wanted to be defined to some youngsters that his puppet Arthur wasn’t really speaking?) Ventriloquists was once a staple on all selection exhibits however – and quite like magicians – have disappeared in recent times. These of an older classic will keep in mind Peter Brough and Archie Andrews who even had their very own radio (!) present. Brough’s lips moved consistently however Ray Allen with Lord Charles was the ‘guv’nor’ and his did solely imperceptibly (I used to be too far again to see Hewlett’s). Later, Hewlett had Warren up from the viewers as a human puppet with a half-face masks, one thing I’ve seen Nina Conti do earlier than, and it was one other side-splitting spotlight of this Cinderella.
Throw into the combo a dance-off, Rylan’s Alan Carr impersonation as an previous crone, one other (pointless?) Southend track to YMCA’s ‘Go West’, some singing by Rylan (firstly ‘Tonight Belongs to You’ after which ‘Over the Rainbow’ which was interrupted by Buttons’s kazoo!), a ‘Any individual to Love’ duet for Cinders and the Prince, slipper-fitting, and the acquainted ‘pop pickers’, ‘shirt quick’ tongue-twister, and ‘If I Was Not in Pantomime’ sketches; and it was clear a lot enjoyable was had by all. Suggestions from the viewers was on a excessive all through the present, such that by the point the Prince has discovered his real love and Buttons ask ‘What ought to we do?’ with the sisters, a solution got here again ‘kill them’; the truth is, they had been banished ‘to Gravesend’!
Rylan was in fact Rylan! However let this not dimmish how good he was on this Cinderella. Stunning – a minimum of to me – was how personable and genuinely humorous Ross King was. There was a really onerous working ensemble of eight dancers and singers and a very good small band and the forged was accomplished by a number of different gifted performers; Djavan van de Fliert’s Prince Charming, Alexanda O’Reilly’s Dandini, and Nic Greenshields and Ewen Goddard – OTT and past, particularly dressed as chandeliers on the ball! – as Hernia and Verruca.
On the finish when Rylan made a brief speech to thank everybody concerned – band, backstage crew, ensemble and stars – and notably director Ashley Nottingham ‘who has put this present collectively actually in two weeks’, you believed him when he stated it was ‘an exquisite expertise’. It was the identical for us who had been there.
Jim Pritchard
Featured Picture: forged of Cinderella on the Cliffs Pavilion
Solid:
Fairy Godfather – Rylan
Buttons – Ross King
Baron Hardup – Steve Hewlett
Hernia Hardup – Nic Greenshields
Verruca Hardup – Ewen Goddard
Cinderella – Oona Cox
Prince Charming – Djavan van de Fliert
Dandini – Alexanda O’Reilly
Ensemble – Michael Afemaré, Sophie Cracknell, Amaris Pearl Gilles, Hannah Nazareth, Chay Wants, Poppy Sharman, Jayd’n Tyrone, Jacob Whawell
Creatives:
Director and Choreographer – Ashley Nottingham
Costume designer – Teresa Nalton
Lighting designer – Alex Musgrave
Sound designer – Chris Whybrow
Speciality Costume design and Development – Mike Coltman
Musical supervisor – Rick Coates
Assistant Choreographer – Matt Jones
Particular FX – The Twins FX
Band – Joseph Morley (musical director/keyboards), Andy Staples (bass guitar), Lee Morris (V drums)
