Cinderella

Published Friday 4 January 2008 at 15:40 by Ben Sharratt

Concerns about Letitia Dean’s availability due to her Strictly Come Dancing commitments were a publicist’s dream, but there’s no doubting the real attention-grabber in this thoroughly populist version of Cinderella.

Archetypal funnyman Tucker, as Buttons, had the audience in the palm of his hand from his first cheeky chappy gag to his last. He needed to be on top of his game too, as act one took a fair while to warm up.

A couple of unfamiliar ballads and a certain sterility during what looked like lip-synched sequences didn’t help matters. Perhaps that’s why Tucker’s natural gift for off-the-cuff humour went down so well. If you need to fill a pregnant pause, he’s your man.

Tucker’s shtick doesn’t break any new ground but what he does, he does effortlessly and brilliantly - especially the Elvis and Gorilla skits that had the audience in uproar.

Alison Dormer as Cinders and Stephen Dean as Prince Charming were bright, breezy and suitably cheesy. As for Miss Dean, she was never less than a trooper as Fairy Godmother, her stints in Strictly Come Dancing and EastEnders proving manna from heaven for the show’s punsters.

Ugly Sisters Simon Bashford and Adam Daye eventually got onto comic sparring terms with Tucker, and Chris Moreno Ltd deserve credit for some supremely garish outfits.

With star billing going to Dean this year and Anita Dobson last year, surely all eyes are on whether Duo Entertainment signs up Leslie Grantham as Dirty Dick Whittington in 2008.