CINDERELLA AND THE MATZO BALL. JW3. , Finchley Rd
L’CHAIM ! TO LIFE, AND PANTOMIME JOKES
It’s not often that you get to hiss and boo Prince Charming, but Nick Cassenbaum’s third magnificent foray into his brand-new genre of Jewish panto reimagines him as formerly Charminski: Ronan Quiniou playing the hipswivelling and petulant lord of a bankrupt kosher kingdom. His mistake is to assume there’s money coming from hardworking Cinderella of the Breadzinsky bakery (Talia Pick, who beautifully sings along with various puppet-mouthed loaves). But as many have observed ever since Diana, the poor girl would always have done better with honest Buttons, oy vey! . Another good joke on the old tale has Michael Cowan as Charminski’s aide disgustedly grumbling at being given a job “schlepping round the kingdom , touching FEET!”
But these are no spoilers, as I haven’t revealed anything about an unexpected identical twin, a giant menacing prawn, or how many of the massed school parties at the matinee clocked the artful circumcision joke (not many, they were small. Come evening there will be big laughs). There’s a greatpleasure is in these school parties and the big family sense of it all. Some are orthodox in tiny hi-vis jerkins and small kippahs, some more secular. My real Jewish companion – it helps to take one for explanations if you’re a baffled goy – was greatly amused by the way that when the very funny Ugly Sisters (Libby Liburd and Rosie Yadid) decided to run off to the Land of Traif to be secular , only the most orthodox school booed her.
Another joy of these JW3 pantos is the merry willingness to include in the family-joke of it all a few quite cheeky refeences to the sacred, in a way Christian panto doesnt much, and one suspects Islam , even if it did a panto, wouldn’t at all. Like the character claiming to be a piece of bread but not at Pesach, because being unleavened would make her “terribly flat”. Or even better the slinky arrival at the Matzo palace ball of “Yolanda Yom- kippur, hoping to do something tonight she can atone for later”.
The music is terrific as ever, led by Josh Middleton on accordion and trumpet (sometimes simultaneously, which is a good trick) , with Oliver Presman on tuba and trumpet and Migdalia Van Der Hoven on drums. They draw entirely on Jewish composers and legendary performers, with fanfares and snatches from Fiddler, Oliver and Cabaret , and at one point The King and I. A favourite moment for me was Middleton with his accordion crooning “Fools rush in”. in basso Elvis style during the Prince’s wooing, where a chat-up line as she flees for Shabbos midnight is “shall we for a walk, study some Torah?”. That made the adults behind me giggle a lot.
It is all grand fun, and for all the sly oy-vey and pehpehpeh family jokes, has all the panto essentials anyone could ask for: glass slippers, a magic punchbowl that punches you, Debbie Chazen on video as the fairy godmother making abominable bakery puns, and added star-power in various Jews at Ten bulletins crisply voiced by the real Emma Barnett: aka Emma High Barnet / Friern Barnet / Barnet Bypass. A big family show, ready to laugh and scold. I was for a while a bit worried that this latest JW3 panto had no bossy Jewish Mother to sort everyone out, but then near the end there are three: the misbehaving Prince haunted by terrifying ghosts of mother and aunties threatening to pinch his cheeks. Perfect. The small children hooted at that. Mazel tov, all!
Jw3.org.uk. To 4 Jan
Rating five
theatreCat 