REVIEW: Chichester's Cinderella - supreme talent, simply magnificent

We’ve grown accustomed to excellence from Chichester Festival Youth Theatre but this year they really do take it to the next level with an astonishingly-accomplished fabulously non-panto retelling of Cinderella.

Full of wit, shot through with poignancy, endlessly inventive and beautiful to look at, it’s a show which sends you home on a huge high – a remarkable achievement from a supremely talented cast who scale new heights under Jon Pashley’s deeply-impressive direction.

For a start, it’s great to get the story of Cinderella in a non-panto context – which means you appreciate the story so much more. Most of the pantos I’ve seen this year are barely interested in their own stories but this is all about the storytelling and the result is entertainment of the highest quality.

Annalise Bradbury was tonight’s Cinderella and it’s a truly beautiful performance she gives especially in the development of her deepening relationship with Dominic Lacey’s Prince, another fine performance.

From utterly different backgrounds, the two are united by grief, and from there Dominic and Annalise really do make you believe in the love which grows between them – a love which has to battle all manner of obstacles from Cinderella’s ghastly adoptive family. Scarlette Guilfoyle and Daisy Chapman are a great double act as the stepsisters, playing off each other with exceptional comic timing and hilarious expression. Absolutely first class. Similarly impressive as well from Tilly Groves as the stepmother

Great too from Dilshad Yilmaz as Cinderella’s father, touchingly conveying the grief of a man widowed and then entrapped in a hideous second marriage. Dilshad gives us his decency and his diffidence – and also his deep affection for his overlooked daughter.

But fortunately Cinderella, as it turns out, is a girl more than capable of looking after herself, a very modern young lady who even dictates the terms of her own marriage – terms which her reluctant Prince is more than happy to accept. From the realms of fairytale we get a real union of equals, celebrated in a finale which, like so much else, is terrific to look at.

The council of birds is a marvellous invention and the ball scenes thanks to Abigail Caywood’s costumes simply dazzle. Not a single panto this year has left me feeling particularly festive. Chichester Festival Youth Theatre’s non-panto Cinderella sends you out positively buzzing.

Last year the youth theatre didn’t really have material worthy of them in The Jungle Book; this year Cinderella is much more of a challenge, and they rise to it magnificently, underlining yet again just why they are one of Chichester’s greatest assets. It was a treat to be there. And maybe the loveliest thing is that, though inevitably you pick out the principals, everyone on stage, especially in the big crowd scenes, was absolutely giving it their all at any given moment. Total commitment, total talent.