GRAMOPHONE Review: Lloyd Webber Cinderella – Original London Cast

Tale as old as time… but clearly with half an eye on the Instagram age. Hearing this concept album before actually seeing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest West End opus (and remember that’s how both Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita started life) may rob the score of context (see me later about that) but lyricist David Zippel and book writer Emerald Fennell clearly conspire to give the familiar fable a 21st century twist or two and Lloyd-Webber even has an Instagram ‘Influencer’ – Carrie Hope Fletcher – in the title role. So who might her Prince Charming be? And can we really take his sexual orientation for granted anymore?

Unusually for Lloyd Webber Cinderella is cast in the traditional book-song format. There are spoken scenes, courtesy of Oscar-winner Fennell, but clearly an abundance of ‘numbers’ to drive the narrative forward and maybe even give the impression of it being largely through-sung. All will be revealed once I’ve seen it. But one thing strikes me quite forcibly about the score – and that is that it plays like a cavalcade of Lloyd Webber styles through the ages and that its somewhat quaint brand of rock/pop is not of its target audience’s time but his. The hooks are super-catchy (or trite, depending upon your viewpoint – the chorus of ‘Bad Cinderella’ is the most memorable kind of awful) and the orchestration (Lloyd Webber is credited) runs the gamut of nasty synthesised samplings – twangy 70s rock and goofy parodies one minute and lush Phantomesque strings and horns the next. The thematic recycling is there: a amusingly venomous duet between the Stepmother (the marvellous Victoria Hamilton-Barritt in deep Cruella mode) and the Queen (Rebecca Trehearn) becomes the ‘Cinderella Waltz’ and a wistfully evocative song for Cinderella – ‘Unbreakable’ – finds outlet in the darker psychological recesses of the piece underscoring the idea that this feisty, Goth-like, bovver-booted Cinderella is vulnerable too. That’s very 2021.

But, as ever with Lloyd Webber, the ballads shine. No one but him writes in what I would call this luxuriant throwback style anymore. ‘Far Too Late’ is chromatically poignant, sadness and regret conveyed through the little twinges in the melody; but the real corker is Prince Sebastian’s ‘Only You, Lonely You’ which is up there with the very best ALW has given us. We get it twice here: Ivano Turco from the show and a bonus of Todrick Hall whacking it out for the US single.