By Grace Hatchell
There are certain preparations that must be made as Christmas approaches.
Theatres start hanging decorations. Pantomime companies assemble their casts. Actors begin warming up their vocal cords.
And I start trying on sensible shoes.
You may think Cinderella has cornered the market in important footwear decisions, but she only had to dance around a palace for one evening. Try doing a postal round in Yorkshire when it’s raining sideways and then come back to me.
Anyway, while I was attempting to determine whether a particularly promising pair had sufficient cushioning around the heel, Sheffield Theatres announced that Ore Oduba is joining this year’s Cinderella at the Lyceum Theatre.
Suddenly my shoes seemed considerably less exciting.
The Sheffield Theatres and Evolution Productions pantomime runs from Saturday 28 November 2026 until Sunday 3 January 2027, with press night on Tuesday 1 December at 7pm.
And they’ve brought in a Strictly champion.
Ore Oduba is going to the ball
Ore Oduba joins the cast following a career that has taken him from television presenting to some very sizeable musical theatre roles.
Most people probably first got to know Ore when he won the fourteenth series of Strictly Come Dancing. Since then, his theatre credits have included Pretty Woman, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Young Frankenstein.
His CV gets considerably longer when you start digging.
Ore is an actor, broadcaster and podcaster who has presented programmes including This Morning and The One Show and appeared as a regular panellist on Loose Men.
More recently, he reunited with his Strictly partner Joanne Clifton for Ten – Champions Reignited, marking ten years since they lifted that glitterball trophy together.
On stage, he has played Dr Frederick Frankenstein in Young Frankenstein, Caractacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Happy Man in Pretty Woman, Brad Majors in The Rocky Horror Show, Aaron Fox in Curtains and Teen Angel in Grease.
Which does rather put my achievement of completing an entire postal round without losing my pen into perspective.
But Ore isn’t heading to Sheffield alone.
Andy Day is coming too
CBeebies favourite Andy Day is also joining Cinderella.
Andy is a BAFTA-nominated presenter and actor who has been a familiar face on CBeebies since 2007, appearing in everything from Andy’s Dinosaur Adventures and Andy’s Safari Adventures to Andy’s Aquatic Adventures and Andy’s Global Adventures.
There really aren’t many places Andy hasn’t had an adventure.
I’m waiting for Andy’s Adventures in the Sorting Office.
He’s also part of Andy and the Odd Socks, the band which launched at Glastonbury in 2017, and has written several children’s books including the Dino Dad series.
And Sheffield’s Dame is back for year nineteen
Then we have Damian Williams.
And when I say Sheffield knows Damian, I mean Sheffield really knows Damian.
This will be his nineteenth year at the Lyceum Theatre, which is frankly less a booking now and more a residency.
Damian has a huge comedy and theatre career behind him, including playing Edna Turnblad in Hairspray and Tommy Cooper in both Being Tommy Cooper and Paul Hendy’s The Last Laugh. His television work stretches back to the early 1990s and more recently includes playing Whiff in Andy and the Band.
For Cinderella he’s bringing his “sister” along too, played by Matt Daines.
Matt certainly knows his way around a pair of panto lashes. He’s played Ugly Sister in numerous productions of Cinderella and has been nominated three times for Best Ugly Sister at the Great British Panto Awards.
He’s also an experienced actor, director and company manager whose credits stretch from A Christmas Carol and Death of a Salesman to Fame and Bugsy Malone.
So that’s Ore Oduba, Andy Day, Damian Williams and Matt Daines assembled so far, with the final casting still to be announced.
A Cinderella with some serious panto pedigree
The show is being written and directed by Paul Hendy and produced by Evolution Productions.
That’s significant because this is the same team behind Sheffield’s Snow White, which won Best Pantomime 2024 at the UK Pantomime Awards. Demand for Cinderella has already resulted in an additional week of performances being added.
Evolution Productions itself has been producing pantomimes since Emily Wood and Paul Hendy founded the company in 2005, and it has won UK Pantomime of the Year five times – including three victories at Sheffield Lyceum.
There are also relaxed, signed, audio-described and captioned performances scheduled during the run, with tickets starting from £15, although availability at that price is limited.
So Cinderella is shaping up very nicely indeed.
Ore Oduba has the glitterball. Damian Williams has nineteen years of Sheffield panto experience. Matt Daines has enough Ugly Sister experience to put it on his passport. Andy Day has dinosaurs.
And Cinderella, presumably, has found a comfortable shoe.
I still haven’t.
Apparently mine need to survive six miles, three hills and a suspiciously aggressive Jack Russell.
The search continues.
Cinderella | Sheffield Theatres
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