These days, tradition is a double-edged sword.

A blade that can be lofted by the balaclava-clad right, ready to pick another fight in the culture wars, it can nevertheless be satisfyingly resistant to any single definition. The pantomime is a good example. Ostensibly as traditional as a Christmas Day televised address from the head of a family at war, it’s infinitely more enjoyable, endlessly mutable and almost avant garde in its blithe disregard for the fourth wall. It’s popular entertainment in the best sense – accessible, entertaining and understatedly anarchic.

Happily, Surinderella, ushering in the solstice season with Blackpool’s illuminations only recently lit, makes the most of these virtues; running a pantomime cow through the freshly-tilled tale of a poorly-used orphan with a careless approach to discotheque footwear. If its ending is never in doubt, the delight is in the detours and diversions along the way to its show-stopping, shoe-fitting finale. Said diversions owe a particular piquancy to a pleasing fusion of the reliable scaffolding of pantomime with the wide-screen colour of Bollywood. Revitalised and remixed to a bhangra beat, this South Asian Cinderella is as redolent of 21st century Britain as a Saturday night biryani.

Even if I’ve only just coined it, it’s nonetheless a truism that any pantomime is only as good as its villains, and, in Andy Kumar’s Lovely and – especially – Raheem Payne’s Bubbly, Surinderella is twice blessed. Channelling their Dosa Cat drag persona, Payne is every manicured inch the indulged teenager, a narcissus in the black mirror of their mobile phone, with the timing and delivery of a would-be influencer unboxing their own vanity. Crucially, both Kumar and Payne are fleet of ad-lib, each with the stand-up’s gift for a sufficiently-defused insult, courting the unwary on the front row as second-best suitors while they impatiently wait for their actual princes to come.

Providing the architecture for their improvised sallies, writer Pravesh Kumar seasons the familiar plot with a pinch or two of subversion, sufficient enough to keep things feeling fresh. Nor does he neglect to cater to the post-teens in the audience, sprinkling the dialogue with lines pitched to amuse the parents and (briefly) bemuse their children. Equally, its sometimes surprising nuances are gaudily worn, drawing attention away from their subtleties, and sometimes – as in the voice of Surinder’s dead father – leaving them underdeveloped. Still, for all its reliance on clowning, paternal loss, disguise and misunderstanding, Surinderella is hardly supposed to be Shakespeare.

The song-and-dance routines, having the effervescent immediacy of uncorked Prosecco, ensure that there’s no mistake in that quarter. Composer PBN demonstrates an admirable facility for inhabiting the genres his songs intend to evoke, from Lazytown-like exhortations to party like a six-year-old who’s swigged illicit booze to Bidhu-like disco strings. More than mere pastiche, they’re catchy testament to the songwriter’s versatility. It’s no mere tautology to observe that it’s in the musical numbers that Surinder herself really sings. Sonya Venugopol, in the title role, is both indefatigable and indomitable in her line reading, all sense and little sensibility, but her range as a singer lets in the vulnerability that lends the character its essential sympathy.

In the end, it’s the tiny touches, the gentle twists, the unexpected arcs and the quiet redemptions that lend Surinderella its pre-midnight sparkle. To reveal these, of course, would be to diminish its magic. It might not soar to stratospheric heights, but – at the very least – you’ll believe a cow can dance.

By Desmond Bullen, Chief Arts Correspondent

Main image: copyright Rich Lakos/ArenaPAL

 

 

Surinderella is touring. For more information, click here.