‘Bad Cinderella’ Is First Song From Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Cinderella’
The song is performed by Carrie Hope Fletcher, who stars in the title role of the show now due to open in London next spring.
Polydor Records has confirmed the release early next year of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella, and today (30) shared the first song from it, “Bad Cinderella” performed by Carrie Hope Fletcher.
Fletcher will star in the title role of the production, which should have opened this month but is now planned to open in London’s West End at the Gillian Lynne Theatre on Wednesday May 19, 2021. Previews will begin on Friday April 30. The album will feature the cast of the much-anticipated production, as well as surprise guest vocalists.
“50 years ago I couldn’t get Jesus Christ Superstar on stage as nobody wanted to produce it, so it appeared on record first,” says Lloyd Webber. “It’s so strange to find history repeating itself half a century later with the album of the complete score of my new ‘Cinderella.’ I can’t get Cinderella on stage because I’m not allowed to, so I have gone back to my roots and recorded the album first.”
Recording started in March this year and has continued through lockdown. Lloyd Webber has recorded artists remotely and produced most of the score from his home, before the process was continued via socially distanced studio sessions in London.
“Bad Cinderella” is Lloyd Webber’s first original material to be released for five years, since the 2015 opening of School of Rock The Musical. In 2018, he released the personally curated compilation, Unmasked: The Platinum Collection, which included performances by Lana Del Rey, Beyoncé, Gregory Porter, Barbara Streisand, Michael Ball, and many others.
A fairytale reinvented
The Cinderella production is a complete reinvention of the classic fairytale, based on an original idea by the Emmy-nominated Emerald Fennell, the lead scriptwriter of the second season of the smash hit TV series Killing Eve. Lloyd Webber’s new score is accompanied by lyrics by David Zippel.
The new film A Promising Young Woman, written and directed by Fennell and starring Carey Mulligan, opens this fall. Fennell also played Patsy Mount on the BBC’s Call The Midwife and is portraying Camilla Parker Bowles on the Netflix hit The Crown.
Fletcher, also a bestselling author and social media personality, has had starring roles including Heathers at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, The Addams Family (UK tour), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (UK tour), Mary Poppins (Prince Edward Theatre), and most recently played Fantine in Les Miserables at the Sondheim Theatre.
The new production will reunite Lloyd Webber with director Laurence Connor and choreographer JoAnn M. Hunter, with whom he worked on the Olivier Award-winning School of Rock and the recent, sold out production of Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the London Palladium, where it’s due to return next summer.
