El Portal's Cinderella in British Panto a Winner

A Modern Musical Extravaganza
Cinderella
The Family Fun Christmas Show
written by Kris Lythgoe
choreography by Mark Ballas
directed by Bonnie Lythgoe
El Portal Mainstage
through December 19

This sparkling new version of the classic fairytale Cinderella is a joy for adults and kids alike. In fact, it's done in the style of a British Panto (short for Pantomime), which has nothing to do with silent mime, but is classified as a winter comedy with music hall or vaudeville sensibility and enough audience participation to make it raucous and fun for the entire family. The Lythgoe Family's new entertainment @ the El Portal is certainly that, judging by audience reactions the day I attended. Everyone was cheering, booing and participating in top form making for a fun-filled afternoon.

There's a sort of interlocutor or narrator Buttons (Benny Harris) who breaks the fourth wall and talks to the audience, the kids in particular, and gets them to root for Cinderella (beautiful Veronica Dunne) and hiss the ugly wicked stepsisters Cowel (Eddie Driscoll) and Seecrest (Mark Edgar Stephens). In this story, there's a Baron (Jerry Mathers) who is father to Cinders and the two uglies. Of course, there's a fairy godmother (Jennifer Leigh Warren), a handsome Prince (Freddie Stroma) and his attendant Dandini (James May) and Little Man as Blitzen, a real live pony who glides Cinderella's carriage to the ball. Harris is wonderfully entertaining and sympathetic as Buttons, Mathers is his characteristically confused Beaver Cleaver, Warren sings beautifully as Fairy, and Dunne and Stroma make a gorgeous couple; even May as the attendant has some cute comical moments, but it's Driscoll and Stephens who steal the show as the campy evil stepsisters, whose bawdy inuendos will delight parents and go right over the heads of the wee ones. They'll be too busy laughing at their excessively gaudy appearance to pick up on the adult jokes.

QDos Entertainment UK is responsible for the lovely sets and great costumes, especially the over-the-top outfits for Cowel and Seecrest; Mark Ballas' choreography is winning with tiny tots dancing around the stage with the grace of sugar plum fairies. And the original music is bright, bubbly and uplifting.

This is the show to see this holiday season - one that will delight the entire household. It's Cinderella like you've never seen it before: you'll laugh yourselves silly! The British tradition has arrived, and will soon become an American one as well!