Your Space review: Cinderella, The Churchill, Bromley (From News Shopper)

Steve Guttenberg stars in Cinderella at The Churchill, Bromley

12:07pm Tuesday 9th December 2008 in Freetime

Cinderella’s great cast, which includes Police Academy-star Steve Guttenberg, show Geoff Billingsley a great time at The Churchill’s panto

Whether you love it or hate it, panto season is here again and The Churchill, Bromley, is staging one of the best-loved fairy tales of them all, Cinderella.

Steve Guttenberg as Baron Hardup may be a far cry from his roles in blockbuster movies Police Academy, Cocoon, Three Men and a Baby and Short Circuit, but he certainly pulls in a crowd.

And playing his daughter Cinders we have the gorgeous Laura Hamilton from Nickelodeon.

There is more perfect casting with Helen Lederer as the Fairy Godmother. Of course, Helen is probably best known for her role as Catriona in Absolutely Fabulous. There’s good support from Tucker as Buttons and Kirk Barker, playing Dandini too.

Thanks to an appreciative, responsive audience we all had a great time - we even had a delightful pair of ponies pulling Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage and without doubt, the ugliest of Ugly Sisters - Pixie and Peaches – who really were quite grotesque.

Not sure what Steve Guttenberg makes of all this British panto stuff but he had the opportunity to mention all his films and more, which was very amusing.

I heard one young mum comment on how much better he was than Paul Michael Glaser in Peter Pan last year as we left. You didn’t hear that from me, though.

They even had Guttenberg singing the title song from Ghostbusters, a film he infamously turned down in the 1980s. As an easy-going likeable Hollywood star, I am sure his popularity accounts for a fair chunk of the audience, who were joining in, in the most traditional of ways - heckling, booing and generally loving it.

Whoever said ‘never work with children or animals’ clearly didn't do much panto.

Cinderella runs until Jan 18 at The Churchill, Bromley. 0870 0606620.