YMMV / Cinderella (Lloyd Webber)

• Audience-Alienating Premise: Why would you tell a Cinderella story where Cinderella starts by defying her stepmother and being friends with the prince? It's like telling a version of Beauty and the Beast that starts with the Beast getting turned back - it negates the entire point of the tale.
• Memetic Mutation: Given the show's poor reception on the West End, which only got worse with the Broadway transfer, many jokes have been made about how "Bad Cinderella" was certainly an accurate title.
• Older Than They Think: This isn't the first version of Cinderella where the heroine is an angry, rebellious Jerk with a Heart of Gold whom her entire town shuns, yet whom the prince falls in love with before the ball despite her grubby looks and pugnacious attitude. The 1955 film The Glass Slipper starring Leslie Caron takes much the same approach to her character.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: One highlight of the show, especially the Broadway production, was the dedication and talent shown by many of the actors, especially in the ensemble, despite the script being ripped apart in the reviews.
• Tough Act to Follow: On Broadway, it had the ”honor" of being Webber’s follow up to the legendary run of The Phantom of the Opera. The fact that it lasted only three months should tell you all you need to know about how well that went down.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: While like other version of the story, the audience is supposed to root for Cinderella due to the hard life she leads under the abuse of her stepfamily. However the inciting incident of the show has her defacing a memorial statue of "Prince Charming", problematic in itself given the man is believed to be dead (there is no indication that he's done anything wrong or there's a good reason for Cinderella to be unhappy with him), but also has stronger repercussions, as the action loses the town of Belleville their status as most beautiful town, throwing their entire economy in flux, which also forces Sebastian's problems of possibly being forced into a loveless marriage to prevent a peasant uprising. Also, she and Sebastian are supposed to be friends, and that's a memorial to Sebastian's dead brother. The fact that Cinderella continually makes bitchy, mean-spirited comments to everyone and about everyone does not help. Some commentators have also pointed out that while Prince Charming is alive, he's also gay and marries his husband, meaning Cinderella's defacing the statue could be construed as a "hate crime." (What exactly Cinderella does to the statue has changed several times. In earlier versions of the show she puts a bra, a feather boa, and a tutu on it, which is especially unfortunate when Prince Charming's sexuality is revealed. In later versions this is softened to her merely putting a sign on the statue critiquing beauty, which is at least a little better.)