Ballroom duo ready to rumba!
ZiZi Strallen and Jonny labey will be taking some radical dance steps into the West end production of Baz luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom.
the pair will star in the musical with Will Young, who plays a band leader.
the show is based on luhrmann’s 1992 movie, which was a surprise hit at the Cannes Film Festival.
labey — a former eastenders actor who won itV’s Dance, Dance, Dance — will play Scott Hastings, a young man who longs to invent new dance steps when he enters the fictional Pan-Pacific dance competition. alas for him, the Ballroom Dancing Federation wants to stamp out his bold new moves.
enter Fran, a shy cleaner who has moves of her own, but is too scared to use them — until Scott shows her how to shake it up.
Ms Strallen, currently appearing in the acclaimed Follies at the national theatre, can dance up a storm (she comes from a long line of top-notch dancers), although for much of Strictly Ballroom she’ll have to pretend she’s a newby on the dance floor.
She had wanted to do Strictly Ballroom when it first ran at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in leeds, but Cameron Mackintosh had already contracted her for a tour of Mary Poppins.
She stressed that it’s not all about the fancy footwork, either. She’s an actress, who happens to sing and dance — she recently did a workshop of a Greek play at the national theatre; and played a straight acting role in the Herbal Bed for the royal Shakespeare Company.
Strictly Ballroom producer Carmen Pavlovic told me she was knocked out by Strallen’s performance in Follies at the nt.
it also helped that the show’s director and choreographer Drew McOnie had worked with Ms Strallen before, when he re-choreographed Chicago at the leicester Curve four years ago.
Pavlovic said Strallen and labey embodied the romeo and Juliet aspect of the show. ‘they feel very natural together,’ she said.
Strictly begins previews at the Piccadilly from March 16, with a company that includes eve Polycarpou, Michelle Bishop, Gabriela Garcia, richard Grieve, Gary Watson, Charlotte Gooch, liam Marcellino and ivan De Freitas (some of whom were in the out-of-town run at WYP).