Northern Ballet in Michael Pink’s Cinderella

Theatre Royal, Nottingham
October 23, 2026

Originally choreographed back in 2009 by Michael Pink for Milwaukee Ballet, where he is now artistic director, the latest version of Cinderella to be performed by Northern Ballet is a very traditional, family-friendly telling of the story. It’s the sort of ballet you can sit back and just let the story wash over you. No deep thinking required. And sometimes, escaping from today’s world into fairy tale, even if only for a couple of hours, is no bad thing.

Pink sticks very much to the usual narrative but replaces the Fairy Godmother with the ghost of Cinderella’s mother. Played by Heather Lehan, she’s very sugary sweet, appearing to have stepped straight out of a six-year-old’s book of fairy stories. It’s very much a non-dancing role. Indeed, she spends most of her time perched on the side of the kitchen chimney looking down on proceedings, a presence that is a little disconcerting.

The tone throughout is light. This is a Cinderella where the heroine has a bright outlook on life. Compellingly danced by Saeka Shirai, she never even gets close to being in the depths of despair. She certainly never asks for sympathy. This is a young lady with hope that is never far from shining through.

The lightness in Act One is helped along by Pink also adding in a household servant and friend to Cinderella. Pantomime regulars will know him as Buttons although, here, he’s called Jack.

If Cinderella’s mother is looking after her from beyond the grave, Jack is doing so in the here and now. Harris Beattie was full of boyish charm and had great chemistry with Shirai. It’s a shame he doesn’t get to dance more, although he did treat us to a super circle of grand jetés, and gets a great celebratory solo towards the end.

In black and looking like Cruella de Vil had somehow stepped into the wrong story, Pink’s Stepmother is the classic, slightly sexy, fashion-obsessed villain. Alessia Petrosino played her for all she was worth. Aggressive and with a real mean streak, she does as much dominating and pushing around of Cinderella’s spineless father (Harry Skoupas) as she does of his daughter. Indeed, you wonder why he ever married her. One also senses that she sees Cinderella as a threat, and keeping her in her place just ensures she doesn’t become too much of a danger.

A demonstration of just how determined Cinderella’s Stepmother is comes in Act III as Pink draws on the Grimm Brothers version of the story, showing her threatening to take a meat cleaver to the foot of one of her daughters so that the glass slipper will fit. Long-standing followers of Northern Ballet may recall a similar scene in which the Stepmother does actually draw blood in Christopher Gable’s wonderful and much darker 1993 production, a ballet that neither Pink’s nor David Nixon’s version comes close to. Why was it ever thrown away?

Pink also returns to pantomime for the two stepsisters, Lucretia and Prunella, danced en travesti by Yu Wakizuka and Andrew Tomlinson, who physically dominate the much smaller Shirai. They are very shallow characters with almost everything very overtly played for laughs. There is no doubting their ability at this sort of comedy, and their understanding of comic timing, but it was all a bit too much for my taste. The out-and-out slapstick in Act III is particularly unfunny.

I did enjoy Antoni Cañellas Artigues and Filippo Di Vilio as the Dancing Master and his just a little too enthusiastic violinist, though. They had a great deal of fun. As a double act they were much more amusing than the stepsisters they were trying to teach.

As the Prince, Jonathan Hanks danced strongly and very cleanly. It’s just a shame the ballet doesn’t allow much in the way of characterisation. His duets with Cinderella are perfectly pitched. Sweetly tender and gentle, they come with no unnecessary virtuoso steps or eye-catching lifts.

The ensemble does sterling work as various spirits and as guests at the Act II ball. Pink’s choreography for the various couples is classical through and through and full of pleasant patterns. That ball really is a vision in gold and ivory thanks to Peter Cazalet’s super costume designs. And I loved the little moment when Cinderella’s father momentarily recognises her.

Bruce Brockman’s set for the kitchen has two very modernist curved structures at its centre that form the sides of the fireplace, later becoming trees in the enchanted garden. That kitchen set does eat the space, though, as if the Theatre Royal stage wasn’t small enough anyway. The oddly angled lighting columns at the ball look great too.

Finally, how wonderful to see the Northern Ballet Sinfonia back in the pit. Live music really does make such a difference.