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DIRTY DANCING: Piccadilly Theatre, London: Review

Kat Pope July 20, 2013

Dirty DancingHow many people in Britain do you think haven’t seen the iconic 1980’s film Dirty Dancing? Just me? You’re probably right and it’s my USP for reviewing the revived theatre show that’s just opened at the Piccadilly. No preconceptions, you see. Before this evening I didn’t even know why you shouldn’t put a baby in the corner. Actually, it still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense….

After a successful six year run at the Aldwych, the production went on tour and is now back until at least February next year in its new home, the Piccadilly Theatre just off Shaftesbury Avenue.

Everyone (but me) knows the story, but here’s a very short reminder. It’s the summer of 1963. Francis (known as Baby, played by Jill Winternitz) and her mum, dad and little sis Lisa take their usual holiday in the Catskills on the American Plan, roughly equivalent to our Butlins. The resort is staffed by waiters and dancers just waiting to get into the girl’s voluminous 1960’s panties, and Baby makes the acquaintance of one of them, a sometime gigolo called Johnny Castle (Paul-Michael Jones).

Stuff happens. Baby and Johnny dance together, they fall in love, they’re kept apart, they reunite. Yay! A happy ending! Honestly, that’s as much of the plot as you’ll need to know if you’re approaching the story for the first time. It’s pretty self-explanatory and besides, everyone but me’s seen the film anyway, right? Right.

The first problem with the piece is the leads. Winternitz sports an authentic 80’s poodle-perm wig which looks so lank it makes you think Jedward had the right idea, while Jones just has hair that looks like a syrup. It has that odd Travolta vibe where it won’t quite sit still on his head one minute and then is as frozen as a dormouse cornered by a cat the next. They both have the charisma of wet fish, hers being a bit less moist than his. There’s not one iota of sizzle between them even in the key dance scenes which makes it a difficult watch.

Jones’ high-toned voice is all throat and no diaphragm, while Winternitz can out-bellow him any day with her deep, resonant tones. The pair are thus out of kilter just by opening their mouths. Both are curiously unsexual even when doing their best smutty moves, with the only truly smoking hot mama in the whole piece being Charlotte Gooch’s tortured Penny, who sways her hips and butt around and around like nuts in a very tight nutsack.

Dirty DancingThe second problem is the pacing. Scenes last for all of 30 seconds. The actors walk on stage, say a few lines and then they’re off again, giving the show a cartoon-like quality, as if written for people with a very short attention span.  If there was a great, galloping story to fit into two hours this might be understandable, but the plot could be summed up on the back of Nick Clegg’s ‘Promises I have kept’ list.

There’s also an almost complete lack of humour to the script (written by Eleanor Bergstein, the original scriptwriter of the film) with very few really cracking lines. The funniest turn comes from sis Lisa when she enters a talent competition with a nervy rendition of Hula Hana. This small spotlight piece gave her one of the biggest shouts of approval when the bows were taken and rightly so, but in a better show it would have just been another ‘funny bit’, not the stand-out it becomes here.

A revolving circle on the stage works well as it discretely ushers the lovers away behind the scenes when anything vaguely naughty looks like it’s going to happen. Otherwise, the stage is bare with a background of white wooden shuttering opening up to reveal a five piece band on the first floor level and an ever-changing projection of backgrounds below them, thus setting an atmosphere easily and quickly, but I think if I’d forked out West End prices for a ticket I’d feel a little cheated by such a sparse set-up.

The cleverest trick involves projections on a front-of-curtain screen of a forest, a field of grass, and the sea, all in quick succession: boom boom boom. Baby and Johnny dance behind them and seem to be ‘there’, immersed  in the scenery due to some simple but ingenious lighting. This gained laughs when they fell into the briny only to resurface a couple of seconds later with a big ‘pah’. The problem was that with the rest of the production being an irony-free zone, I wasn’t sure if the director (Sarah Tipple) had actually meant for this to be the comedic moment it was, or whether she just didn’t understand how daft it actually looked. When you’re that unconfident in the driver’s intentions, you’re already reaching for the car door and a speedy exit.

Considering Dirty Dancing is set in 1960’s America when everything was boiling over politically, every bit of ‘what’s happening in the outside world’ is shoehorned into one campfire scene – so American it made my gums hurt – with a This Land is Our Land and We Shall Overcome sing-a-long. Someone mentions the Cuban Missile Crisis, another says they’re going to join the Peace Corps, and then *fingersnap*, we’re back in the room and it’s never mentioned again.

This isn’t a musical, by the way. A musical, to my mind, involves the leads actually singing and neither Johnny nor Baby warble a note in this production. When singing is required, people are dragged up from the back of the stage to do the honours. Generally they do it well (Wayne Smith as Billy being a standout), but it’s not the same as having the two people we’re investing our emotions in singing their emotional hearts out. The music itself is an odd mishmash of styles, with all the classic 80’s hits thrown in plus some more modern, throwaway numbers. Nothing quite gels, nothing quite sparks, nothing quite works.

But hang on! What’s happening here? Johnny, previously a gigolo of good character, is accused of pinching things and is sent off from the resort with his tail between his legs. But tah dah! Suddenly there’s a huge crash (which both my son and I thought was a door falling off its hinges at the back of the auditorium) and he’s back, skipping through the audience, hair bouncing like a tortoise on a trampoline. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” he squeaks.

But Baby isn’t in a corner: she’s sitting at a table. Is this corner metaphorical or is she in an actual corner in the film, sitting with her back to us with a dunce hat on her cockapoo perm? Son Sid turned to me as the whole house erupted in hearty cheers of unalloyed joy, raised his eyebrows and shrugged. He’d given up trying to understand it too.

I was bored with this show; nothing more, nothing less. Having said that, my mate Cathy saw it twice on its original run and, well, the fact that she was willing to pay to sit through it twice tells you all you need to know, so it really is horses for courses. I think it goes like this: if you’ve seen the film and loved it, you’ll probably wet your expensive Piccadilly seat. If, like me, you’ve steered clear of it, it’s probably because the whole concept didn’t really take your fancy in the first place and you’ll want to tear your eyes out by the interval.

WHAT: Dirty Dancing,

WHERE: Piccadilly Theatre, London

WHEN: Until the world goes bang probably

TICKETS: £26.50 – £67

MORE INFO: CLICK HERE: https://seatplan.com/london/dirty-dancing/

WOULD I SEE IT AGAIN: What do you think, Baby?

STARS: 2

 

 

 

 

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