An unknown Rodgers and Hammerstein musical? Not exactly. But although Whitney Houston and Julie Andrews have appeared in Cinderella on US television, the Bristol Old Vic's staging is the first in Britain for half a century. So, asks Rhoda Koenig, is it a lost classic?

As the director Timothy Sheader waited for a bus in Philadelphia three years ago, he glanced at a poster on the bus shelter, and did a double take. It advertised a tour of a musical called Cinderella, by Rodgers and Hammerstein. How, he wondered, could he have not known about it, given his love for musicals, fairy tales and Rodgers and Hammerstein?

Best known as the endearing Raymond Box, half the personnel of the hysterically funny National Theatre of Brent, John Ramm has deeply serious views on Christmas entertainment. "I told the Lyric that I was interested in doing Cinderella only if it concentrated on telling a story. That often gets lost in panto. If you have someone from Coronation Street in the show, it turns into a chance for someone from Coronation Street to be funny. When my parents took me to pantomimes, I would get frustrated when the actors made jokes that only the adults could understand. Our show will be on one level - the children's."