birmingham

Review: Burn the Floor – The Reunion

~ Lifelongdancestudent ~ Leave a comment

I know. I’ve been at the theatre a lot lately. All the way back in December when Strictly Come Dancing was heating up towards a dramatic final, tickets were going on sale for the spin-off touring shows, such as the Live Tour and the Professionals Tour . I couldn’t make the Professionals Tour dates, but instead I jumped in and bought tickets for Burn the Floor – The Reunion: A Celebration of 25 Years at the Symphony Hall in Birmingham.

Well, last Friday night was the night! My SO and I drove up the M40 to Birmingham on Friday morning and as the show was in the evening, we stayed over until Saturday. We parked up at the Mailbox and wandered into the centre to get something to eat. WELL, as we were walking along the road, we were approaching a zebra crossing when we suddenly saw a couple riding a tandem bike towards us. How lovely, you say! Yeah, except they were STARK NAKED. IN THE MIDDLE OF BIRMINGHAM FOR CRYING OUT LOOOUUUD.

The middle of Birmingham

Later on (when I was enjoying noodles, egg-fried rice, spicy pork and salt-&-pepper chicken) and had processed what HECK I had witnessed, I wondered if they had been protesting something. When I told my mum about it on the Saturday evening, she asked me if they had a banner. I told her I don’t know –  I didn’t want to look again to find out…HA-HA!

And….now onto the show!

Birmingham Symphony Hall

The show kicked off at 7.30pm and the auditorium was pretty much full, apart from the row in front of us (as usually happens, that row suddenly populated after the interval). The award-winning Broadway show Burn the Floor is the show from which most of the Strictly pros are scouted. The Reunion starred our favourite former and current pros: Robin Windsor, Aliaz Skorjanec, Janette Manrara, Trent Whiddon, Karen Hauer, Kai Widdrington, Dianne Buswell, Luba Mushtuk and sibs Kevin and Joanne Clifton, as well as other BTF dancers I hadn’t necessary heard of, but some of whom have been Strictly/Dancing with the Stars pros in other countries.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but the show was a much bigger production than I imagined! At the beginning, director and choreographer Jason Gilkison came out to introduce the show and talk about its beginnings and evolution. We gave a huge round of applause, and it was quite emotional for him and the dancers as it was the final time they would probably all perform together. Then the lights lowered and it began. These amazing dancers took us through a variety of incredible ballroom, Latin, contemporary and jazz routines to a fantastic set of songs, led by incredible singers Rietta Austin and Patrick Smyth, with plenty of light and shade. There was Charleston, cha-cha, samba, paso doble, rumba, waltz and bit of Fosse I believe. The colourful lighting effects were exciting and atmospheric, and the whole thing was really quite “wow” in that size of auditorium. We sat in the Grand Tier but if you were lucky enough to be in the stalls, the dancers performed and strutted in the aisles around you on several occasions.

I have to say that although everyone was fantastic, my stand-outs of the show were Karen and Janette – just fabulous and so much precision. Towards the finale the show blew up with an explosive jive to Tina Turner’s ‘Proud Mary’, which I LOVED of course!!

You know that big wheel keep on turning
Proud Mary keep on burning
And we’re rolling, rolling
Rolling on the river

And just when you thought it was over, they came back out to a really apt musical number – ‘Ballroom Blitz’! As you can imagine the applause went on for AGES! At the end the show’s creators came onto the stage at the end to a round of applause and the dancers were all hugging each other and some had their phones out filming the audience and capturing the electric atmosphere. The whole thing was so uplifting!

Verdict: An exciting, energetic, exuberant Strictly Spectacular! 

Review: Fatal Attraction

~ Lifelongdancestudent ~ Leave a comment

On Saturday afternoon I went to see Fatal Attraction on stage at the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham, known locally as ‘the Alex’. I actually got wind of the show being on after having seen a TV interview with a member of the cast. 

I’ve never seen the 1987 Oscar-nominated movie starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close, so I had no expectations of the play. In case you don’t know, the story is of a supposedly happily married man who ends up having a one-night stand, but this one-night stand comes back to haunt him and starts to stalk him and his family, making his life very difficult…One particular incident that takes place in the story gave rise to the term ‘bunny boiler’.

The play starred Kym Marsh (Hear’Say, Coronation Street, The Syndicate) as Alex Forrest, along with Oliver Farnworth (Coronation Street) as Dan Gallagher and Susie Amy (Footballers’ Wives) as Beth Gallagher. The audience were on the edge of their seats the entire time, and the sense of foreboding was constantly hanging in the air. The staging was effective, with scenes set in various homes, Dan’s workplace and the bar where Dan and Alex meet. Kym Marsh was excellent as the desperate Alex and the British cast did a convincing job with their American accents!

The Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham

The ending to the play is different to the movie, but on reading around, I believe this was the intention of the original screenplay, and also it was the ending that actress Glenn Close would have preferred. But of course, Hollywood had other ideas. You get more of a sense that Alex has mental health issues, rather than her being framed as the ‘crazy stalker woman’, and with all of his lame excuses, we actually wanted Dan to face the consequences of his actions.

Fatal Attraction continues to tour the UK, with Susie Amy taking over as Alex Forrest and Louise Redknapp (Eternal, Cabaret, Strictly Come Dancing) joining the cast this week as Beth Gallagher.