Cinderella

Cinderella - ACross The Boards

22/12/19

I joined the Across The Boards Theatre School on their very first show outside of their usual church hall setting at their pantomime Cinderella that was shown at Viva Cabaret Bar in Blackpool.  It was certainly a big step up, due to size and technical input from their normal shows.  The show was written, Directed & Choreographed by Anna Cross, the owner of the school.  The school has a very large age range and is an inclusive group, accepting all abilities.  This was the classic story of Cinderella with some unexpected twists.  Some of the changes worked really well but a couple of the writing and direction choices didn’t really gel for me.  There were multiple actors playing the same role as the main character and one as a conscience, which did become a little confusing at times.  It certainly was a fresh approach to the story and I applaud Anna for taking some daring decisions.  The other major change was to play the expected “Pantomime Dame” character as a drag queen, called the Fairy Dragmother. This again took me by surprise a little but well done to Matthew Holton for taking on this tricky role at a young age.  The main Cinderella character played by Lola Connor-Emmott was played confidently with plenty of energy and with some great projection to fill the large auditorium.  Halitotia and Fartina played by Tia Hodson and Aimee Burrows respectively gave confident performances of their comedy characters, ensuring the audience were involved.  There were a couple of times when you could tell that the cast were expecting laughs from the audience, but the line delivery needed a little attention to give the audience time to register the comedy at times.  I thought the cast dealt with the much larger stage than their used to well and with the much bigger auditorium very confidently.

The technical input from the in house team was generally very good, but their were a couple of mic bleeds from back stage, showing the limitations of experience of a theatre show from the team that are obviously more used to cabaret performances.  I applaud the tam at ACross The Boards for challenging the cast to perform in a larger venue and helping them experience a different space.  Well done to all - I’m looking forward to seeing your shows in 2020.

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