The book for this version of the popular pantomime story is said to have followed the 'long-accepted lines of the conventional Cinderella revival.' The Sydney Morning Herald review suggests, too, that the production's success was primarily due to Taylor having emphasised 'the salient incidents of the fairy legend... the beacons on the ocean of topical verbiage' (24 December 1894, p.6).
Songs incorporated into the 1894 production, a large number of which were recent successes from London and America, included: 'Alas I do not Know' and 'O That We Two Were Maying' (sung by Ray Jones); 'I Seek For Thee in Every Flower' and 'Sweet Marie' (James Norrie); 'Swim Out, Gormano,' and 'At Trinity Church I Met My Doom' (Horace Wheatley); 'Sligo,' 'Sweet Marie,' and 'Songs My Mother Sang' (James Norrie); 'Musical Madness' (duet by Hagan and Fraser); 'Ours is a Happy Home' (Martin Hagan); 'Out
on The Spree' (Lucy Fraser); and 'Hush-A-Bye, My Little Pickaninny.' Additional musical performances included a 'Clog Hornpipe' (dance by Horace Wheatley), 'The Fairy Apple Blossoms Ballet' and 'The Unique, Red, White and Blue Ballet.'
The 1895 Brisbane season included such songs as 'Little Alabama Coon' (Marie Luella) and the instrumental/dance numbers, 'The Toilet Minuet,' 'The Tricolour Barn Dance' and 'All Nations Ballet.' Other highlights of the production included: 'The Tableaux Vivants Nursery Tales,' 'The Sports Procession "Pan-Britannic Festival"' (which included the 'Champion Lady Cyclists' and 'Popular Jockey's Hornpipe'), 'The Processions of Fairy Toilet Articles,' 'The Brilliant Electric Carriage,' 'The Dazzling Illuminated Palace,' and 'The Death and Burial o' Poor Cock Robin.'
The original production's scenic artists, Goatcher and Gordon, presented numerous visual spectacles - some of which were 'Borders of Fairyland,' 'The Royal Ballroom,' 'The Wealth, Produce and Progress of Australia,' 'The Pearl Fisheries,' and 'Dream of Federation.' The Brisbane Courier suggests that the most exquisite pictorial illustration of all was the transformation scene, representative of the wealth and products of Australia. The critic writes:
'It is from the brush of Phil Goatcher, and depicts colonial progress from primeval forest to federated Australia. There was a forest, tall and wild, out of which pioneers hewed their homes and the primitive teamster tolling over the unmade road, pictures of Ballarat and Broken Hill, and the interior of a gold mine followed succeeded by the Pearl fisheries, with craft lying lazily on a summer sea and concluding with an allegorical scene "United Australia"' (24 May 1895, p.5).
1894: Lyceum Theatre, Sydney; 22 December 1894 - 25 January 1895
1895: Opera House, Brisbane; 22 May - 5 June.
1896: Gaiety Theatre, Brisbane; 6-12 June.
