Cinderella – Brixton House, London

Brixton House shake up the traditional Christmas show format with Cinderella, a fairy tale on a more human and nuanced scale.

Cinderella

The Christmas season is now well and truly upon us!  And yesterday I had the opportunity to see a fun, family-friendly and full of heart production: Cinderella at Brixton House.  This is my second year running seeing Brixton House’s seasonal offering.  Some of you may remember last year’s Alice in Wonderland, co-produced with Poltergeist.  It was a playful local take on a well-loved classic.  Similarly this year the Brixton House team have taken the story of Cinderella and made it meaningful to local audiences and particularly young people, with themes of family and friendship, social media and gentrification.

Central to this retelling is Sindi-Ella (Yanexi Enriquez).  She lives above what was her parents’ greengrocers with stepmum Steph (Julene Robinson) and stepsister Tia (Jesse Bateson).  Both girls are grappling with change. Tia with moving from West to South London (not bougie enough), and Sindi-Ella with the loss of both parents.  Grief is a hard thing at any age: Sindi-Ella isn’t ready to talk about it yet and has thrown herself into keeping the greengrocers going and tending to favourite houseplant Delphy (Ray Emmet Brown in a clever costume) to cope.

Only things for the shopkeepers of Brixton Lane aren’t so good.  Charmz (Alex Thomas-Smith), the CEO of teen social media platform Flip-Flop (join the dots both to the Cinderella story and another similarly-named platform) has arrived in Brixton, is buying up property, and putting up a mega mall instead.  How can Sindi-Ella turn back the clock to the good times if everything’s changing?  Especially when Charmz is throwing a big party the same night as Sindi-Ella’s relaunch of the shop…

From Fairytale to Brixton Tale

Cinderella explores this world of Flip-Flop dances, AI friends (not that the friend likes that label), loneliness, friendship, grief, and family through a blend of songs, a touch of pantomime, and natural magic.  Delphy lends a majorly hand in proceedings, but what that is I won’t say (no spoilers). OK one spoiler: ‘flowerly godfather’.  Suffice it to say this is a family-friendly show so everything works out in the end.

The small cast of five have great energy and bring Sindi-Ella’s world to life.  The relationship between Sindi-Ella and Delphy is touching, as is the budding friendship between Charmz and Sindi-Ella.  Plus it was nice to see more nuanced stepfamily dynamics than in the fairy tale original.  Steph’s challenges navigating her relationship with her late husband’s daughter are sensitively portrayed by Robinson, a layer which adds a depth to the play for older audience members.

There are also some great performances packed into this relatively small venue. Vocals from Robinson and Brown are consistently good, Thomas-Smith nails both the choreography and vocals, perhaps not surprising considering their musical theatre credits, and the characterisation work from Enriquez and Bateson creates a believable relationship and tension between them to drive the action forward.

While I think a touch more pantomime or more Christmas might strengthen Cinderella, it is an enjoyable production and has a lot of heart.  I love local stories told for local families, and could see how much the children in the audience connected with the story and characters.  The creative set (Amelia Jane Hankin) and catchy music (composed by Duramaney Kamara with lyrics by Danusia Samal) help to make Cinderella memorable.  Worth a trip for South London families, and those who want to support local artists and creatives.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3.5/5

Cinderella on until 31 December 2023. More information and tickets here.