Review: DIRTY DANCING - THE CLASSIC STORY ON STAGE, Dominion Theatre

Many in the audience were not even born when the movie, Dirty Dancing, was a smash hit 35 years ago, but it sits proudly, like Back To The Future (also on stage in the West End) in its very own place within popular culture, perhaps more so with women than men.

It has its iconic song, its iconic dance move and iconic line - yep, nobody puts Dirty Dancing in the corner. This stage version has been on tour internationally and in the West End on and off for 18 years or so - not entirely coincidentally, the same timeframe that Strictly Come Dancing has run on television.

We're in the late summer of 1963 at the upscale Kellerman's resort in New York state's Catskill Mountains. While the men wear hideous outfits and play golf, the women wear beautiful dresses and take dance lessons. "Baby" is there with her older sister, a child no longer but not quite an adult either (The Beatles were yet to invent the teenager in the USA). She's middle class, but, not entirely convincingly, fired up by the emerging Civil Rights movement so, when Marlon Brando-ish working-class Johnny, a dance teacher and beefcake (or, maybe, beefcake and dance teacher) catches her eye, well...

Kira Malou and Michael O'Reilly are our handsome couple and they do as much as they can with the plodding book and stilted dialogue. Malou is all "in love for the first time" excited and can dance well even if her voice was often too high-pitched for complete clarity amplified across a large auditorium. O'Reilly's acting isn't great, but he looks the part and a good proportion of the house seem more than satisfied with that. Both seemed a little stiff in each other's presence - but press night can do that to even the most experienced actors.

Carlie Milner is much the best dancer on show, but her part as Penny, a girl "in trouble", is, like all the others, dismally underwritten, so we barely get to know her. And, even accounting for its early Sixties setting, the hypocrisy re: girls getting pregnant with a blind eye turned to men sleeping around (unless a pregnancy ensues) is more than a touch nauseating. If a preposterous, anachronistic campfire chorus of "We Shall Overcome" can be introduced to the stage version, cannot the sexual politics get a little rebalancing too?

Mimi Rodrigues Alves is a fine singer, but she is underused - another curious decision as she got a fantastic reaction from the house whenever she reached for her belt.

So there's furtive, hypocritical sex and absolutely no drugs at all - so how about the rock'n'roll? We're treated to a selection of mainly second-rank period classics (no Elvis, no Buddy, no Nat King Cole) and, though I recognised songs like "Duke of Earl" and "This Land Is Your Land" (seriously!), I'm not sure many in the house did. They're waiting to jump to their feet and sing along to "(I've Had) The Time Of My Life" - and, eventually, they do.

It's easy for a critic to be sniffily superior when reviewing a show like this - it is unapologetically commercial, successful on its on terms and will bring audiences back to the West End. But one looks at the drab set, the music amplified to gig levels drowning out much of the singing and the gruesome dialogue and one has to call it as one sees it. I did not have the time of my life, but plenty will - and that's okay.

Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage is at the Dominion Theatre

Photo Mark Senior

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