Prokofiev wrote his score for Cinderella during World War 2, hence Matthew Bourne’s decision to set his version at the height of the London Blitz. As the audience waits for the performance to begin sirens sound and low-flying bombers roar loudly overhead. The front-drop is a famous Picture Post photograph of St. Paul’s lit by searchlights and the city burning city. All that is lacking is wartime songs and Vera Lynn singing We’ll Meet Again.
Cinderella (Kerry Bigin) is a mousey girl who wears spectacles and is as unlovely and as boring as her ghastly three stepbrothers and two stepsisters, cartoon figures every single one of them. Daddy is a cripple in a wheelchair. A shell-shocked pilot (Sam Archer), his head in bandages, staggers into the house and is immediately shown the door. Cinderella goes in search of him. There is an air-raid and she is one of the casualties. She loses her shoe and her mind.
The whole of Act 2 takes place in the Cafe de Paris (which received a direct hit in the war, killing many). In her delirium, the wounded pilot reappears as a dashing romantic lead and dowdy Cinders is transformed into a glamorous film star swirling about in white just like Anna Neagle used to do with Michael Wilding.
The third act finds her in hospital. Meantime, still in a state of shock, the pilot, clutching the shoe, gets beaten up by some rough types on the Embankment. Bewitched, bothered, bewildered, and concussed, he arrives at the same hospital. It is only a matter of minutes before the couple are reunited and live happily ever after.
Buttons does not appear and there’s no Fairy Godmother. Instead there is a Guardian Angel, a Wim Wenders Angel of Desire/Death, danced by Christopher Marney, dressed in a grey suit, his hair is all white, and potentially the most interesting character. Michela Meazza is cast as the wicked Stepmother and she’s so wicked she even tries to smother Cinderella in her hospital bed. Elsewhere there are air-raid wardens in gas-masks pretending to be dogs. Prokofiev’s music is a blast.
A two act ballet is unnecessarily stretched to three acts. Much of the dancing, which is dancing for dancing’s sake in the Café de Paris, doesn’t further the plot and should be cut. The actual choreography (never Bourne’s strong point) is repetitive. The most exhilarating dancing is left for the company’s curtain-call.