Review: 'A ball for all the family! Cinders gets my vote...'

After weeks of election pantomime - “I’ll solve the housing crisis.” “Oh no, you won’t!” - it was time for the real thing at the Opera House on Saturday, and the spectacular production of Cinderella certainly won my vote.

It’s an all-singing, all-dancing explosion of colour, fun, wackiness, and lunacy - and hit the all-important quota of laughs within the first few minutes alone.

Co-writers Frank Mackey and Trevor Ryan are celebrating a decade of Opera House pantos, and have it down to a fine art now, as the full houses that have seen the show so far will surely agree.

We all know the story of Cinderella, but this is far from a slavish re-telling, as the production veers away from the plot at hilarious tangents. I mean, the Fairy Godmother being turned into a bee by the wicked stepmother probably hasn’t appeared in any of the variations of the story over the past 400 years.

The godmother (AKA, Nanny Nellie) is of course played by the brilliant Mackey, who is such a tour de force, he deserves his own show in the vein of Dame Edna Everage.

The part when he was turned into a bee (it was my nine-year-old daughter Laura’s favourite bit) saw him clambering up a hive to sing, only to be swatted off it time and again. At one point, exhausted, he turned to the audience and gasped: “You’re only here for the evening, I have to do this for a living!”

The fourth wall was also shattered many times by the other wonderful comics of this panto - mean stepsisters Taylor (Alison McCormack) and Skylar (Julie Maguire of Rathpeacon) - who revel in their naughtiness in accents that are pure Cork, boy.

Their song-and-dance routines of Rosemary Clooney’s Sisters and Murder On The Dancefloor were particular highlights, while the scene when they were spooked as they slept by characters in Scream masks had the audience screaming in joy (tinged with a little fear, I imagine).

Of course, this being a Cork panto, there were plentiful topical references - the demise of Lennox’s chipper, Donald Trump, profligate government spending, even the Everyman panto got a mention.

The plot is held together admirably by the main players Cinderella (Megan Pottinger) and Prince Charming (Paul Wilkins), along with the hyper-fun figure of Buttons (Brian O’Muirí).

The scene where Cinderella glided over the audience at the end of the first half was another wow moment among many. The lights, staging, choreography, and costumes are superb. A word of praise too to the ensemble cast and young children who made some magical cameos.

Saturday’s show started at 7pm - do leave time to browse the lovely Christmas mini-market outside the Opera House venue - and ended at 9.40pm, including a 15-minute interval.

Oh, and a final word to writers Mackey and Ryan. For years, you’ve been dissing Ballincollig in your pantos and I’ve been laughing along, but now it’s become Ireland’s tidiest town, I notice you’ve decided to move your target down the road to Macroom. That’s a bit too close to home for comfort - any chance you can choose a different town? How about Carrigaline?