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A great night out for cutting loose
FOOTLOOSE
Novello Theatre
AT my airy-fairy north London primary school, they used
to make youngsters learn country dancing.
Once a week, every week, you were made to feel like a sap,
prancing around to maypole music and wondering whether any girl
in school would ever take you seriously again.
It was just cruel and simply encouraged bunking. But then maybe
more of us would have turned up for class, remembered our plimsolls
at least and paid more attention to our dosey-dos if we had
known back then that great dancers have as much fun as the Footloose
gang.
A terrific stage version of the 1980s cult film, this is the
story of Ren McCormack, a dancefloor show-off who moves from
Chicago to the back end of nowhere only to find, horror of all
horrors, dancing has been completely outlawed in his new smallville
home.
With comforting predictability, he leads a teen rebellion against
the ban, standing up to bullies along the way and convincing
geeks that they too can ask a girl to dance and not look silly.
For all its prim sentimentality, the average punter who turns
up for Footloose isn’t here for a lecture about parenthood
or peer group acceptance, what we really want are jazzed up
versions of wedding reception fare such as Let’s Hear It
For The Boy and Holding Out For A Hero.
And, bingo, that’s what we get – with some tight silver
hot-pants thrown into boot.
Derek Hough sparkles as Ren (the part played by Kevin Bacon
in the movie), taking each dance as if in front of the bathroom
mirror rather than a theatre audience.
Ariel, the main love interest, crowned foxiest girl in town,
it seems, solely because she wears red cowboy boots, is captured
just as expertly by Lorna Want. Cheryl Baker – yep, she
of skirt-ripping Bucks Fizz fame – is a wise old head who
realises that a dancing ban is plain stupid, while Stephen McGann,
(the McGann brother who was in Emmerdale), plays her husband,
the party-pooping priest who hates dancing because his son died
coming back from a rave.
Truth is, McGann throws in a wooden performance but there is
little time to dwell on the weak links in a show blessed with
so much energy and so many knockout set-pieces. A smashing night
out, this one should run and run.
Book Now
Until September 9
0870 5344 444
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