Brian O'Connellreviews Cinderellaat the Glór Irish Music Centre in Ennis
This year's panto offering in Ennis by local company Pantaloons navigated the line between slapstick humour and unwarranted coarseness a little too finely.
The narrative, by John Morley and directed by Leonard Anderson, stuck faithfully for the most part to the "girl-in-rags gets sorted out by her fairy godmother meets prince charming and lives happily ever after" format.
Little attempt was made to modernise the setting, besides the Fairy Godmother (Geraldine Saunders) working in a dotcom business, and the odd reference to Mary Harney and a mean-spirited minister for finance.
The cast had so much exposition to labour through in the first half that when the baddie, the Baroness (Paul Curley), asked the audience, "What's my name?", she was met with stony silence. The audience either couldn't remember, or worse, couldn't care less.
Dance numbers were kept to a minimum, and both male and female leads had a habit of directing their gaze high above the balcony. Costumes were bright and well observed, while the set worked well as a traditional artistic backdrop.
Even allowing for opening night nerves, sound and lighting cues were frequently missed, microphones were audible off stage, the singing was nervy and often seemed out of tune, and sections of the script were fumbled over and lines dropped. The musical choices ranged from Can't Help Falling in Love With You to a recording of Merry Christmas Everyone at the finale (why didn't they sing it?).
Aside from the myriad production issues, some apparently off-the-cuff remarks might have been minimised with tighter direction.
The most objectionable came when Cinderella was labelled a "lazy slut", and, when audience interaction had stagnated, the Baroness appeared to improvise a line to the audience: "Ye should all be outside in a halting site." Both remarks were met with a muted response from the auditorium.
Given that the production was an irony-free zone up to that point, such discourse was largely unexpected and unwelcome.
Ends January 3rd
