Rather than fretting about dance steps at that kind of ball – Cinders is cooking up Matzo balls at the local kosher bakery.
Cinderella and the Matzo Ball panto opens at Hampstead’s JW3 centre with music, theatre and comedy, running from December 7 to January 4.
Talia Pick makes her pantomime debut as Cinderella the baker, alongside her bad sisters ‘Milshig’ played by Rosie Yadid and ‘Fleishig’ by Libby Liburd.
For those not already in the know, ‘Milshig’ is the Yiddish word for milk or cheese products and ‘Fleishig’ for meat — and they should never be mixed.
Matzo balls are Ashkenazi Jewish soup morsels made from matzo meal with beaten eggs and oil, margarine or chicken fat, resembling bread dumplings.
The three sisters get up to all sorts of beatings, as with eggs, mixing cakes and some soggy bottoms at their bakery in ‘Yeast Finchley’.
Cinderella’s magical journey as the clock strikes the start of Sabbath — rather than midnight — takes her to the Upside-down Land of Traif (non-kosher), where they sing of “cockles, snails, bacon, lobster and oysters” in a very Jewish take on this classic tale.
“We are cooking up the panto with no half-baked ideas,” writer Nick Cassenbaum says. “The magic and wonder of Cinderella has talking beigels, buns and puns for the Matzo ball.”
Talya Soames is Cindereller’s ‘bread-friend-forever Buttons’, with puppeteer Lillith Freeman as ‘Beigel Streisand’, Michael Cowan as ‘Pita Rabbit’ and French actor Ronan Quiniou as the Prince. Plus, a fluffy ‘Godmother Fairy Cake’.
The onstage Klezmer band is led by Josh Middleton, with trumpeter Oliver Presman and Mexican drummer Migdalia van der Hoven.
Abigail Anderson is in the director’s chair. Choreographer is Yael Loewenstein, set designer Laura Hopkins, costume supervisor Beth Qualter-Buncall and puppet maker Lauren Connolly, with lighting by Amy Daniels.
The JW3 centre in Finchley Road has added extra shows for children due to selling out all the school performances. No school will be left out, the organisers promise.
The ‘magical winter fest’ opens December 7 with doughnuts, hot chocolate and festive kosher cocktails which also includes the Chanukah ‘Funukah’ candle lighting week to mark the ‘miracle of Chanukah’ in the year 139BCE.
