Little Cinders
 Pantomime is the inevitable sequel to the excitement of the Christmas festivities, It remains
a firm favourite with children and those who ought to have grown up. Although I have not for
several years taken an active part in producing a pantomime, there was a time when this hectic
activity played an important part in my annual fixtures.
For as long as I can remember, my expertise in the realms of special stage makeup and pyrotechnics
has been called upon by pantomime producers. Many of the products of the past would today be
soundly denounced by the nanny-statesmen, but they were great fun and much appreciated. I cannot
remember ever having caused any damage to health or property. And I have always looked forward
to being part of the audience in January.
This year my local pantomime was Cinderella, "Little Cinders", known long ago in France
as Cendrillon. The fairy tale on which it is based is thought to be ancient and of Eastern
origin. It reached the German literature in the 16th century and became popular throughout Europe
when Charles Perrault published his Contes de ma mère l'oye in 1697.
The pantomime differs from most others in not having an animal such as a cat, a cow or a wolf
as a principal character. (It is true that Cinderella's fairy godmother transformed mice into
coach-horses, a rat into coachman, and lizards into footmen, but these creatures do not usually
appear on stage.) Instead, a rather pitiful but generous character called Buttons is the real
hero of the show, and offers the born comic a grand opportunity to shine. When Buttons first
entered the scene is unknown, because he does not feature in Perrault's script. Perhaps he was
invented by John Weaver, the Shrewsbury dancing-master who promoted the pantomime or harlequinade
in 1702.
The serious theme beneath the Cinderella story concerns the relationship of daughters of successive
wives who have to live in some kind of equilibrium with one another and with their common father.
This has always been a tricky situation. The poor baron, a widower, has remarried and thereby
acquired two grown-up daughters who share the pride and overbearing character of their mother,
while his young daughter by his mild-mannered first wife has inherited her loving and modest
character. The haughty sisters, characterised in the pantomime as the Ugly Sisters, tyrannise
their young sister, and are eventually defeated only through the intervention of a fairy godmother,
assisted to a great extent by the comic and acrobatic Buttons. It offers food for thought to
conjure up the idea of a fairy godmother-in-law, and what she might have done to wreck the scenario.
One of the interesting features of Perrault's story is the tracking down of Cinderella through
the loss, at a second royal ball, of a glass slipper which she had shed at the stroke of midnight,
when her godmother's spell ended. The notion of a glass slipper must always strike one as unnecessarily
stupid. It is supposed that when Perrault wrote of it he was really thinking of une pantoufle
de vair, meaning one of fur, but in his original text he undoubtedly wrote une pantoufle
de verre, meaning one of glass. The error became embedded in all our versions of the Cinderella
story, and we have to admit that it adds glitter to the pantomime.
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