Cinderella, Theatre Royal Windsor, review: Debbie McGee brings panto magic to the Queen’s doorstep

Never mind flashing magic-wands and programmes. They should sell boxes of hankies at the Theatre Royal Windsor. Some patrons may feel the urge to blub like babies in the face of this all-singing, all-dancing, care-banishing Cinderella, which qualifies as the first big panto to open in the UK this Covid-benighted season.

That it’s on at all is a thing of wonder. The Government’s panto-saving mission, “Operation Sleeping Beauty”, was announced with some fanfare in September. But hopes diminished as infection rates rose, they wilted again when lockdown returned, and they were thrown pell-mell by the harsher tier system. Some venues were all geared up but left with nowhere to go but streaming – and prayers for a pre-Christmas miracle – as some 45 pre-announced pantos fell into Tier 3, leaving about 70 in all in England.

The locals of Theatre Royal Windsor can go to the ball, though it depends on their postcode: denizens of Slough, now in Tier 3, have seen their visits wrecked. There’s still a chance that this gilded coach of a show (directed by Carole Todd) could revert to a pumpkin when the tiers are reviewed mid-month, but given that Her Majesty is staying at the castle for the festive period, it’d be tantamount to treason to bring the curtain down.

Besides, the Covid-safety precautions are fit for a regal visit. The auditorium is given an anti-bacterial spray-over between every performance; capacity is down to about 300; big and noisy school-parties are out. In terms of audience participation, it’s not the usual carry-on: stamping is the required substitute for calling out “It’s behind you!”, there’s no inviting of tots up on stage and – alas – no sweets are flung our way.

What we see before us, though, is near-mystifyingly (and eye-mistingly) like the good old pantos of yore: loud, silly and grand. Come the finale, there are 12 actors on stage, plus Basil Brush (playing Baron Hardup) atop his box. There’s proximity and tactility throughout – achieved by co-ordinating the cast in discrete (and discreet) clumps, with no one touching the same prop. Kisses are blown rather than planted, but Prince Charming (Dominic Sibanda) does get down on bended knee and beg (and hold) the hand of Alice Fillary’s Cinders.

Her wishes are granted by Debbie McGee’s bright, beamy, Strictly-fixated Fairy Twinkletoes. In what now feels stirringly like a symbolic act of uplift, our heroine is carried aloft at the end of the first half, her angel-winged horse galloping into the stalls.

The Theatre Royal’s regular dame, Steven Blakeley, plays the (only) ugly sister Lavitia to perfection, mincing about in a series of ever more outlandish costumes; the script is his, and it duly, and cannily, references what we’ve been going through. “I thought I might have been fur-loughed,” jokes Basil at the start – boom boom! – adding that he has had to have his sight tested. “Where did you go? Specsavers?” asks Kevin Cruise’s Buttons. “No, I just drove to Barnard Castle.”

There are less frivolous, applause-begetting shout-outs for all the key-workers who’ve pulled us through 2020. Nurses, doctors, bin-collectors et al are name-checked as superheroes. They should add “panto-troupers” to the list.

Until Jan 10. Tickets: 01753 853 888; theatreroyalwindsor.co.uk. For a guide to which Christmas pantos fall into which tiers, visit: britishtheatreguide.info