Theatre reviews: Cinderella | Cinderella | Cinderella

There are three very different versions of the Cinderella story being told on stages in Ayr, Musselburgh and Bathgate this winter, writes Joyce McMillan

Cinderella, Gaiety Theatre, Ayr ****

Cinderella, Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh ***

Cinderella, Regal Theatre, Bathgate ***

Cinderella at the Gaiety Theatre, Ayr

In the world of pantomime, Cinderella is the most famous story of them all, full of rags-to-riches magic. In 2023, though, the story very rarely follows its traditional course without a few questions being raised; and although this year’s Cinderella at the Ayr Gaiety stays close to the familiar storyline, even here Bethany Tennick’s spirited Cinders makes sure she can still pursue her own dreams and interests, after she ties the knot with Ross Forbes Mackenzie’s handsome Prince Louis.

The secret of the Ayr panto’s success lies in director and co-writer Ken Alexander’s superb sense of pace and mood, as he steers the company through a show that strikes a perfect balance between raucous comedy and true romance. It also features an unusually rich vein of local content, in a script full of japes about ongoings at South Ayrshire Council; as well as an outstanding Buttons in Gavin Jon Wright, and a priceless pair of dames in the show’s co-writer Fraser Boyle, and Ali Cleland, as big-spending ugly stepsisters Annie Armanny McClatchy and Vera Versace McClatchy. Add some lovely and sometimes moving songs and music, co-ordinated by musical director and composer Ana-Thea Panainte, and gorgeous, skipping teams of local children providing the chorus, and you have a true local panto to relish, full of Christmas joy.

In Musselburgh, meanwhile, the Brunton Theatre team is doing a heroic job of sustaining the theatre’s presence while its building remains closed because of structural problems. This year’s Brunton panto is therefore a very small affair, produced by children’s company Hopscotch Theatre, and presented – after a schools tour – at the little theatre in Loretto School.

Despite these limitations, though – a small stage, and a cast of just four – Hopscotch make a fine job of delivering a short but inventive 90-minute Cinderella. This Cinders – a poignantly earnest Rachel Still – dreams of life as an international explorer, while sweeping the floors at the Musselburgh market run by her family, and having the life plagued out of her by nasty stepsisters Hackit and Glaikit. Sandy Bain’s Hacket is all-round revolting and deafening enough to frighten the wits out of the younger tots; but there’s no doubt that she adds to the energy of a lively tale that involves Cinderella arriving at the Loretto ball by taking her wee scooter through the woods behind Musselburgh, and finally going travelling with Calum Barbour’s comically vain but redeemable Prince, rather than resigning herself to a life behind palace walls.

Cinderella at Loretto School

And at the Reconnect Regal in Bathgate, finally, producer-director Pete Sneddon delivers a Cinderella that seems more like a night at a surreal 2020s school disco, than a conventional version of the story. To say that show lacks traditional Christmas spirit is an understatement. It’s wild, subversive, and occasionally scary, under Josh Brown’s dramatic lighting; and there’s barely a local reference or a well-organised piece of audience participation in sight, as Sam Stuart Brown and Reece McInroy’s terrifying Ugly Sisters enter to the strains of Prokoviev’s March Of The Capulets.

In Sam Fraser and Reece McInroy’s super-original script, Amy Brennan-Clark’s friendly but world-weary Cinderella is redeemed, in the end, by her slow-burning romance with Bronagh Docherty’s non-binary Buttons. The show, though, is so stuffed with ironic attitude and cultural satire that it can hardly tell the story for sending it up, not least through the character of Lewis Carlyon’s desperately confused Prince; and its huge redeeming feature lies in its brilliantly-choreographed 12-strong chorus of local children and young people, who provide the heart and soul of a show that is certainly a version of Cinderella, folks – but not quite as we’ve ever seen it before.

Cinderellas at the Gaiety, Ayr until 7 January; Brunton Theatre at Loretto until 30 December; and at Re-Connect Regal, Bathgate, until 29 December, with a special adult edition on 30 December.