Will you have the time of your life? Dirty Dancing returns to the Dominion Theatre

Dirty Dancing has officially returned to the West End, treating the audience’s “Hungry Eyes” with splits, dips and tricks.

The musical, based on the 1987 beloved classic, captures all the steam and heart of the movie, along with featuring many songs heard in the soundtrack. This includes “Do You Love Me”, “Hungry Eyes” and the pinnacle number “(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life”.

Unlike other musicals, Dirty Dancing uses music alike the movie, as more of a background piece to the action or dancing rather than to tell a story. There are two ensemble members who sing most of the songs and a band that is constantly on stage, acting as the holiday music staff. The featuring of the band onstage is a nice touch, adding not only to the ambiance of the classic American holiday resort but also it features some nice moments where the characters can interact with them and there are many jokes in the production relating to this.

The main golden light of this production is in the title; the dirty dancing. Every member of the cast has a shining moment choreographically. The dances are choreographed superbly, with a perfect mix of feeling natural and looking amazing. The kicks are sky high, the lifts are astounding, the hips are swaying, everything you need for a stage version of the iconic movie. Charlotte Gooch as Penny Johnson, the dance instructor, is a star when she’s moving. The way she holds herself, the way her legs can hit the ceiling, she makes everything she does look easy and graceful. Her dance scenes with our resident Johnny Castle, Michael O’Reilly, are eye-catching, you cannot look anywhere else.

Michael O’Reilly gives us the classic bad boy with a heart of gold persona and is immediately the favourite of the audience. His dancing is clean and precise, yet he dances with such anger which works perfectly, the way he changes his dance style and even his breathing from when he dances with the other wives to when he dances with Baby, you can tell that O’Reilly knows the character well after being in the show for so long. The problem with Johnny in this production is his dialogue. O’Reilly’s performance is very strong but the words he is given to say are weak. He uses a lot of words but actually doesn’t say a lot. His speeches feel long-winded and complicated. This might be due to the constant whooping and hollering of the audience whenever he is on stage.

Kira Malou and Michael O'Reilly, picture taken by Mark Senior

Kira Malou stars as Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman. She captures Baby’s innocence about the world perfectly, and the journey we see her go through is portrayed well. We see how she changes as the show goes on. She also performs the awkwardness of Baby very well, which is in contrast to the hard and focused Johnny. Their chemistry is incredible with every scene. The audience feels the tension between the two of them and this is especially prominent as the two actors are actually together in real life. They are the driving force of the show and carry it with as much as the they do the iconic lift at the end of the show, which is met which rapturous applause.

The pitfall of the show is it feels long. It is a perfect capturing of the movie, but the added scenes don’t add anything to the experience, they just make the production seem more long winded. Certain jokes don’t land, and the plot changes in pace constantly. It takes ages to get to the main plot of Johnny teaching Baby to dance but then that is over very quickly, they do their performance and then act 2 is full of a lot of waffle and small fights, etc. The book of the musical is what lets the show down. They focus too much on montages and dance scenes, time that could be used to smooth out plot points like the wallet scandal.

It is still a fun night out and probably perfect for work party, hen do or a fun treat. Fans of the movie will love this production, leave singing all the songs and then try the lift when they get home. It is definitely worth a watch.

Dirty Dancing is currently running at the Dominion Theatre until April 29th

 

You can book tickets and find out more at: https://dirtydancingonstage.co.uk/