CityLife

Cinderella

Lisa Riley

WHAT a difference a year makes!

Extravaganza Productions have pulled all the stops out this time for a truly traditional family pantomime.

Money has been spent on this production and it shows with a glittering proscenium arch, great sets and gorgeous costumes.

There's also a fresh script which livens up this well-known fairy-tale.

Plus there's bubbly Lisa Riley, (Emmerdale, Fat Friends) who, within seconds of her appearance as the Fairy Godmother, has the audience in the palm of her hand. That girl is a star!

Naomi Slater is a delightful Cinderella and has a pretty voice as well.

My only quibble is that she doesn't appear until half an hour into the panto, which is meant to be her story but that could easily be rectified.

There are two Principal Boys in Nicola Foxfield, who makes a dashing Prince Charming and sings well but Majella Fitzgerald as Dandini needs to watch her nervous hand movements.

Martin Daniels is a pleasant enough Buttons but the days of magic tricks in the middle of the story-line have long since gone.

There's comedy from Robert Pearce and Rodney Ward as the two grotesque Ugly Sisters but the Brokers' Men are not really necessary.

The local dancing school make cute animals for the opening woodland scene but fox-hunting has rather different connotations nowadays.

However, the transformation scene was worth the wait.

This pantomime is still too long and you can tell by the number of toilet trips that an hour each way is about as much as small children can take at one sitting.

But well done to the production company for providing a quality
production for a theatre, with its staff of enthusiastic volunteers and the splendid theatre-organist, who certainly deserve the best.

Cinderella is at Stockport Plaza until Saturday, January 11.