Matthew Bourne's Cinderella Tickets in London at Sadler's Wells

What Tickets Cost

Tickets start from around £20 and go up to around £170 for the best seats on the busiest dates. Most good seats tend to be between £60 and £120.

Almost every performance still has seats at the bottom price. The exceptions are matinees, including the first Saturday matinee on 5 December and the last performance on 17 January, where the cheapest seats have already gone.

Performance Schedule

Evenings are at 7:30pm, Tuesday to Saturday. Matinees are at 2:30pm on Thursdays and Saturdays (no Thursday matinee in the first week), and 2pm on Sundays. There are no shows on Mondays.

Over Christmas there are extra 2:30pm matinees on 22, 23, 29 and 30 December, and two Sunday evening shows at 7pm, on 6 and 27 December. Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are matinee only, Boxing Day is 4pm, and there's no show on Christmas Day, Monday 28 December or New Year's Day.

The last performance is Sunday 17 January 2027 at 2pm.

Book Matthew Bourne's Cinderella Tickets

Matthew Bourne's Cinderella plays at Sadler's Wells from 1 December 2026 to 17 January 2027, with tickets from around £20. All-in: the price you pick is the price you pay.

The matinees are the first to go, so book those early. Bringing a group for Christmas? Call us on 020 7193 9050 and we'll find you seats together.

Best Seats for Matthew Bourne's Cinderella

For dance you want to see the whole stage and the dancers' feet, so sit a little further back and higher than you would for a musical.

• Best: the front of the First Circle, rows A to C
• Next best: the middle of the Stalls, from row D back to about row H
• Best value: the front of the Second Circle, rows A to D
• Think twice: the Stalls rows in front of row D, where the stage is high and you can lose the dancers' feet

The levels are covered one by one in the Tickets and Best Seats tab.

Where to Sit for Matthew Bourne's Cinderella

Sadler's Wells was rebuilt for dance in 1998. There are no pillars, and the floor rises well on every level, so most seats see the stage clearly.

First Circle

The level we'd book first for Cinderella. Rows A to C look down on the whole stage, with no safety rail in the way, so you see the big set pieces, like the bombed Café de Paris, and the dancers' feet. In row A, sit at least two seats in from the aisle. Row M, the back row, sits partly under the level above.

Stalls

Closer to the faces. From row D back to about row H is the sweet spot, where each row is raised and the seats are staggered. The rows in front of row D are flat and below a high stage, so the dancers' feet can disappear. From around row P you lose the top of the stage under the circle.

Second Circle

The cheapest level, and high up. Rows A to D give a clear view of the whole stage and feel closer than you'd expect. Further back it gets steep and the legroom is tight for anyone over about 5ft 6.

The slips

Single rows of seats down the side walls of each level, close to the stage but side-on. In the two circles the seats nearest the stage are high stools without backs. Fine for a bargain, not for a special night out.

Every row is on the Sadler's Wells seating plan, and there's more on the Stalls, the First Circle and the Second Circle. Call us on 020 7193 9050 and we'll tell you what's left on your date.

Accessible Performances

• Audio described, with a Touch Tour beforehand: Saturday 9 January, 2:30pm
• BSL-interpreted post-show talk: Saturday 9 January, after the 7:30pm performance

No captioned or relaxed performance has been announced. Access bookings are handled by Sadler's Wells' own team, not by us, and the step-free routes are in the Sadler's Wells access guide.

Who's Matthew Bourne's Cinderella For?

• Adults and couples who want a classy Christmas night out that isn't a panto
• People who have never seen dance before. There's no dialogue to follow, and you already know the story
• Families with children of 8 and over. Younger children may find the bombing raids, explosions and sirens frightening, and there are some grown-up scenes
• Fans of old British films like Brief Encounter and A Matter of Life and Death, which critics have spotted in it

It's not for you if you want songs, or a panto with jokes and shouting back at the stage.

About Matthew Bourne's Cinderella at Sadler's Wells

Matthew Bourne is the choreographer behind the all-male Swan Lake, and his company, New Adventures, brings a show to Sadler's Wells each Christmas. Last year it was The Red Shoes. This year it's Cinderella, which he first made in 1997, at the Piccadilly Theatre, and then reworked in 2010. This is the 2010 version, last seen in London in 2017, with a new company of dancers for its 30th anniversary.

Is it a ballet? Yes, in Bourne's own style. The dancers play characters and the story carries you along, so it feels closer to watching a film than to a classical ballet. The music is Prokofiev's Cinderella, written in the 1940s for the ballet, with air raid sirens and explosions as part of the sound.

Lez Brotherston designed the sets and costumes, and his designs for the show won an Olivier Award. The ball is held at the Café de Paris, a real London nightclub that was bombed in 1941, and it's the scene critics single out: you see the bombed club put itself back together in front of you.

It runs 2 hours 20 minutes, with two intervals, so an evening show finishes at about 9:50pm. There's smoke and haze, strobe lighting, loud explosions and sirens, and bombing raids shown on stage. Smoking is part of the show too.

What's Matthew Bourne's Cinderella About?

When the curtain goes up, Cinderella is the drab, bespectacled drudge of a war-damaged house in London, kept in her place by Sybil, a glamorous and spiteful stepmother, and a whole family of stepsisters and stepbrothers. Her father, injured in the First World War, sits in a wheelchair.

There's no fairy godmother. Instead there's the Angel, a man in a white suit, who brings her Harry, a wounded RAF pilot. They meet in the Blitz, she gets to her ball, and then the bombs separate them, so the second half follows the search across wartime London, from the Underground to the Embankment.

It ends happily, though the war is there all the way through.

Matthew Bourne's Cinderella Reviews

This year's reviews will come in December, once the critics have seen the 2026 company. Until then, here's what they said when the same production was last at Sadler's Wells, in 2017, and before that in 2010. Different dancers then, so it tells you about the show, not this year's cast.

What the critics said in 2017

Critics agreed that moving Cinderella to the Blitz was what made it work, and Lez Brotherston's bombed Café de Paris is the scene they kept coming back to.

Sarah Crompton gave it five stars on WhatsOnStage on 20 December 2017, writing that the version Bourne was presenting "twenty years later is stronger, tighter and more emotionally charged."

In the Guardian on 26 December 2017, Judith Mackrell wrote that using the war as a backdrop "is inspired".

Neil Norman gave it four stars in The Stage. Jenny Gilbert gave it four on The Arts Desk on 21 December 2017 and called it "a blast", while finding some of the story "a little fuzzy" and the sound so loud that "you now feel the music through your feet."

And in 2010

When the reworked version opened at Sadler's Wells in December 2010, Ismene Brown on The Arts Desk called it "Bourne's finest hour".

Cinderella news

The 2026 cast was announced on 17 September 2026. Around 70% of the company came through New Adventures' own training programmes.

This 30th anniversary production opens the tour in Plymouth in November, plays Sadler's Wells over Christmas, and then tours the UK until May 2027.

Cast and Creative Team

Most of the company is new for 2026, though Michela Meazza, who played the stepmother in 2010 and 2017, is back. Every main role is shared between two or three dancers.

Matthew Bourne directs and choreographs. The rest of the company and the creative team are on the Cast and Creatives tab.

Matthew Bourne's Cinderella Cast

Each of the four main roles is shared, and New Adventures doesn't publish who dances which performance.

• Cinderella: Hannah Kremer, Katrina Lyndon
• Harry, the Pilot: Reece Causton, Rory Macleod
• The Angel: James Lovell, Andy Monaghan, Kingston Taylor
• Sybil, the Stepmother: Michela Meazza, Daisy West, Nicole Kabera

Michela Meazza played Sybil in both 2010 and 2017.

The stepfamily and the people of 1940s London are played by Mark Austin, Benjamin Barlow Bazeley (Dance Captain), Tom Barnes Standing, Isabella Chandler, Carla Contini, Adam Davies, Christina Gibbs, Louis Harris, Thomas Ireson, Rosanna Lindsey, Maisie Mwebe, Matthew Petty, Matthew Potulski, Holly Saw, Molly Shaw-Downie and Shakiera Ward, with Cameron Allan, Ethan Fairclough, Woody Freeman and Harry Hincks making their New Adventures debuts.

Creative Team

Directed and choreographed by Matthew Bourne, to music by Sergei Prokofiev. Sets and costumes by Lez Brotherston, lighting by Neil Austin, sound by Paul Groothuis, and video and projection by Duncan McLean.

Getting to Sadler's Wells

Sadler's Wells is on Rosebery Avenue, London EC1R 4TN, in Angel, Islington, rather than the West End.

The nearest tube is Angel, on the Northern line, about 5 minutes' walk. Angel has no step-free access. From Farringdon (Elizabeth line and Thameslink) the 341 bus stops right outside, and from King's Cross St Pancras the 205 or 214 takes you to Angel.

The 19, 38 and 341 buses stop on Rosebery Avenue outside the theatre, and the 153 stops about a minute away at Friend Street. At Angel, around 4 minutes' walk away, you can also get the 4, 30, 43, 56, 73, 205, 214, 274, 394 and 476.

Arrive 20 to 30 minutes before, no later. There are bag searches at the door, and the bars on every level open an hour before the show.

Parking, the step-free routes and everything else about the building are in getting to Sadler's Wells and our Sadler's Wells guide.

Accessible performances

• Audio described performances: Sat 9 Jan 2027, 2:30pm

Access bookings are handled by the venue's own access team, not by us.

Matthew Bourne's Cinderella FAQs