CAMP AS CHRISTMAS!!! In particular, Carolee Carmello as the Wicked Stepmother plays it like the most over-the-top drag queen – such fun. And completely in tune with the joyously crazy tone of the show. The energy is high, the designs eye-poppingly colorful, the general feeling very gay (there’s even an ensemble number with shirtless hunks dancing like they are in a male strip club show!). And the score is peak Andrew Lloyd Webber – his scores can be hit or miss for me, and this is definitely in the hit category, to my mind his most tuneful this century. Sexy, silly, frolicsome, mischievous, just the kind of light entertainment we need in these dark days.

So why is this Cinderella “bad?” Mostly she is punk as fuck, and so self-possessed. The plot follows all the “beats” of the traditional Cinderella plot, but there is a twist every single time, some of them quite feminist and queer. Lindedy Genao in the title role is sassy as hell, and belts with the best to the back of the balcony. She may have too many ballads, but the powerful way she sings them makes it worth it.

Bad Cinderella is set in a fanciful version of belle epoque France that has elements as medieval as broadswords and as 21st Century as bikini waxes. The town in which Cinderella live is called Belleville, a town as obsessed with beauty as, say, Instagram or TikTok. Director Laurence Connor s things at a very lively clip, which just makes the camp even campier. Fun, fun, fun. Recommened.

For tickets, click here.

For more more about Jonathan Warman’s directing works, see jonathanwarman.wordpress.com.