Wheelchair user plays Cinderella in panto 'first'

Julia Mark hopes to inspire more theatre groups to provide roles for wheelchair users

A theatre company is staging what it believes is the first-ever pantomime in which Cinderella is played by a wheelchair user.

Cinderella Goes All Inclusive is appearing at Luton Library Theatre from 23-25 October and features Julia Mark in the title role.

"It's a really funny show, and I feel really quite privileged to be the very first person to be doing something like this," said Ms Mark, 30.

The theatre paid to install a ramp so she could access the stage, which she said "might seem like a small thing, but it's a really big thing to me".

Claire Kula and Ms Mark rehearsing for Cinderella Goes All Inclusive

Ms Mark has been using a wheelchair since the age of 20, due to a connective tissue disorder and spinal cyst.

She said it was very rare to come across roles written specifically for wheelchair users, and that many amateur dramatic spaces were not set up for people with disabilities.

"There are definitely lots of theatres I wouldn't be able to use," she said.

"The first Gilbert and Sullivan show I was in was a bit of a nightmare getting on stage – it involved going outside through the car park.

"But then they moved to a theatre with a flat stage, not raised. So accessibility can be partly down to societies and how willing they are to make changes," she said.

Ms Mark is a member of the local Gilbert and Sullivan Society, and has previously played the wicked stepmother in a school production of Cinderella

Playwright and director Jonathan Goodson said: "I've written a few pantos and tried working in more characters who are female and older, and then I thought 'Cinderella should be a wheelchair user.'"

Goodson, from Dunstable, Bedfordshire, told Andy Collins on BBC Three Counties Radio it had taken him two years to find the right actor.

He described the play as "a traditional story with a real twist".

"In conventional Cinderella, the lead does a lot of dashing off stage and rapid costume changes to transform from rags into ballroom finery and back again," he said.

"My version deliberately avoids the need for that – and allows the actor to retain a more static position."

Goodson said he decided not to "tiptoe around the disability" in the script.

"We have some quite on-the-nose moments in there," he said.

Ms Mark said: "That's something I really loved when I first read the script.

"I asked Jonathan if he knew anyone who has a disability, as some of the jokes are the kinds of things my wife and I would joke about.

"It feels very relatable – it doesn't pull any punches."