Andrew lloyd webber cinderella musical8/30/2023 ![]() Ostensibly, the show presents itself as a critique of superficiality. In fairness, this Cinderella is only half-bad, but its virtues are in all the wrong places. ![]() As the old expression goes: If the shoe fits… That’s a minor victory for truth in marketing, at least. And now there is Bad Cinderella, a 2021 Andrew Lloyd Webber bauble that ran for a year in the West End as Cinderella but has tacked the word Bad in front of its title to make its U.S. The archetypal rags-to-riches heroine figures prominently in two Broadway fairy-tale mashups, the recent Into the Woods and the upcoming Once Upon a One More Time last month, Off Broadway’s Hip Hop Cinderella sent her to outer space. As new and returning productions open everywhere, hopefully theatreland will have its happy ending, but this Cinderella isn't the belle of the ball, after all.Musical theater loves a Cinderella story, and in 2023 that affection has been unusually literal. Lloyd Webber and his new show have done so much to keep the public and political eye on musical theatre. In this and so much elsewhere, the show frequently flirts with posh panto, the finest of which plays to adults and children with more finesse than the crass blowjob gestures and the clunky "F(orget) you" refrain here. Mess with tropes all you like, but we need to know who we are rooting for and why.įor such a lavish, glossy affair there is also some jarring vulgarity. ![]() She finally realises she is her own worst enemy. And then she is only 'saved' from the lazily relentless premise that 'pretty equals bad' by someone else's actions. It's not just the music, I'm all for the sentiment and the scene's secret big twist but it's all a bit frantic and forced, a fumbled opportunity that can't quite hit the right note.Īnd what exactly does our 'Bad Cinderella' want in the end? Her own snobbery against the shallow townsfolk is exposed when she transforms herself into an idealised beauty to snare her man. Evita's army officers spitting out Peron's Latest Flame hits harder and deeper.Ĭinderella and Sebastian's main anthems are undeniable Lloyd-Webber earworms but, surprisingly, much else is not, including the underwhelming big finale to Marry For Love. The undeniably crowd-pleasing Hunks' Song offers up a testosterone-fuelled frolic with topless male totty flexing for laughs, despite the underlying message of toxic masculinity. The dark makeover scene to Beauty Has A Price reminded me of the lighter, brighter and more biting Eternal Youth Is Worth A Little Suffering from Sunset Boulevard. In fact, I kept having flashbacks to other songs that are actually from Lloyd Webber's own repertoire. Lyrically and musically, the stepsisters' pouty number Unfair can't hold a candle to Rodgers and Hammerstein's Stepsisters' Lament, while the badinage of the older women's accordion-infused I Know You echoes the heavenly I Remember It Well from Gigi. In addition to the wardrobe, Hamilton-Barrit also vamps with an extraordinary gaspy rasped voice and series of ludicrous Botox'd expressions that most drag queens would die for.īoth pairs of actresses are wonderful, but their material doesn't quite match the potential, especially when these familiar fields have so often been ploughed before. Both rock a series of ever more sensational camp couture gowns and hats as they trade barbed power plays. There is slick support from Georgina Castle and Laura Baldwin as the viciously vapid stepsisters, one of whom fears she will be left on the shelf as a "spider" before the other cuts in "spinster." But the even more fabulous double-act between Rebecca Trehearn's Queen and Victoria Hamilton-Barritt's Stepmother often steals the show. It can't be ignored that he also looks startlingly like a young Michael Jackson at his peak, and moves like him in the frustratingly brief moment when he is allowed to dance. The fact that his beautiful but raw voice occasionally wavers on the big numbers only adds to the appeal, especially on the power ballad Only You, Lonely You. Fresh out of drama school, he brings an endearing coltish awkwardness to a shy young man forced to step into his older brother's shoes. She's matched by exciting newcomer Ivano Turco as Prince Sebastian. The bombastic I Know I Have A Heart and achingly tender Far Too Late are classic Lloyd Webber compositions and Fletcher slays both with ease. The rollicking track is punchily delivered by a leading lady who is equally effortless at playing the malcontent outsider who rages at the inanity around her as she is at revealing her character's inner insecurities and fragility. ![]() Step forward Fletcher's 'Bad Cinderella' – and because subtle this show ain't, it's also a song.
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