It’s hard (for me, perhaps more talented people excel at this) to just think of puns cold. I need context and dialogue. The first thing that popped into my head was “well, if the shoe fits”, but that hardly qualifies…
Of course, I will now spend my day mulling over Cinderella puns at work. Thanks.
Is it for, er, an old church organ? Perhaps there are vicars involved? Seriously, I can’t believe you guys still do that sort of thing - it sounds unimaginably quaint.
I hope you’ll have a slapstick scene where a couple of amiable duffers manage to lob flour and water around (perhaps while trying to cook a cake for the party).
Panto is a peculiarly British phenomenon, with tropes that go back partly to music hall, and partly to commedia dell’arte. The full name is “pantomime”, it’s traditional to have it around Christmas, and it usually retells a well-known story: Dick Whittington and his cat is one popular theme.
One tradition is that the lead male role is played by a young woman, while a comic role of an older woman (the “dame”) is played by a man. So, typically Dick Whittington would be played by a woman. Another tradition is of animals (e.g., horses or cows) played by two people, leading to jokes at the expense of the actor playing the rear half of the animal. As you might guess, humour can be very broad, and while children will make up a large part of the audience, a lot of the jokes are supposed to go over their heads.
Innocent Female Lead to male lead:
F: I was thinking about you last night
M: So was I
F: I couldn’t sleep a wink
M: Nor could I
F: I was tossing …
M: <knowing nod to audience>
F: and turning
A lot of your jokes are going to be dependent on the Dame. Make sure they pick someone very confident to ad-lib and improvise because that’s the most important part of their role (arguably the most important part of the panto).
Cinderella is quite a difficult one, because usually it requires two dames for the ugly sisters, and they will have to be really really good together.
It’s hard for us to suggest puns and innuendo because it’s dependent on the context. Ones I remember sticking out are from the scenes where characters (usually the clown and the dame) were planning to sing a song. The song suggestions were usually along the lines of:
‘She was only a surgeon’s daughter, but she certainly knew how to operate’
‘She was only the fisherman’s daughter but she knew how to handle a rod’
I am inspired! How about going down a Sex and the City route. The glass slipper can be a Manolo (or whatever the ridiculously expensive shoe du jour is), the ugly sisters can be whatever-their-names are, and Cinders can be Carrie Bradshaw. Prince Charming is ‘Big’. Buttons can be that lame bloke who’s married to one of them or whatever. The Fairy Godmother changes all her shit into designer goods. Lift a load of clean-ish jokes from the SatC scripts.
(Disclaimer: my ex wife watched SatC religiously, but my knowledge of the show is limited mainly to absorbtion by osmosis, though it did make me laugh occasionally, and going to the see the godawful film in the cinema.)