What a Feeling: Flashdance brings
Theatre
Flashdance The Musical
The Playhouse, Edinburgh
Neil Cooper
***
ANYONE wishing to see the connections between classical ballet and shaking your stuff in late-night dives as salvation from the 1980s recession could do worse than check out this touring revival of the musical stage version of Adrian Lyne’s 1983 film. Back then, in a post Fame, pre Billy Elliot world, Tom Hedley’s original story concerning Pittsburgh teenager Alex was as blue-collar aspirational as it got. Alex does dayshifts as a welder at the local steelworks before thrusting her way through a late-night floor-show at the local club, all the time harbouring dreams of joining the tutu-clad elite at the Shipley Dance Academy.
Enter boss’s son Nick, who attempts to buy his way into Alex’s affections while being forced to lay off shop-floor staff. With the club Alex dances in similarly exposed to hard times, this ushers in a sub-plot concerning even more hardcore small-town sexploitation, until Alex and everyone else come good, with Nick forsaking the evils of late 20th century capitalism.
Hedley’s book, co-written with Robert Cary, who co-wrote the show’s lyrics with composer Robbie Roth, is a busy construction, with Hannah Chissick’s Selladoor Productions-led affair modelled on a 2013 Swedish take on the show. This is carried by the fearless chutzpah of Verity Jones as Alex, gamely supported by Colin Kiyani as Nick and a breathless cast.
While there’s something clearly going on beyond the double denim, pink neon and stretch-Lycra throwbacks, it’s perhaps telling the show’s best numbers – Maniac, Gloria, a wisely milked What a Feeling, plus a raunchy version of the Arrows/Joan Jett and the Blackhearts anthem, I Love Rock ’n’ Roll – are all from the film. The result is an entertaining and energetic time capsule that isn’t quite ready yet to stand on its own two feet.
Dance
Tango Moderno
King’s, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
****
THE tremendous whoop of delight that greeted the arrival of Flavia Cacace and Vincent Simone on-stage was maybe tinged with a squeak of relief. Simone was injured and out of action at the start of last year’s tour: Edinburgh fans were among the disappointed, even though the show itself is – like the duo’s other boldly imaginative productions – decidedly more than a high-end platform for their talents alone.
In cahoots with director/ choreographer Karen Bruce, the pair have now conjured up a “lonely town, lonely street” theme for Tango Moderno’s ensemble of young singletons who, thanks to Flavia and Vincent’s playing Cupid, find that love is just a dance away... Cue a lively mix of ballroom styles that also edges on to the street with moments of (valiant) hip hop demonstrating that we’re not channeling nostalgia.
The music choices similarly touch base with the present day, so that songs by Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran and Rag’n’Bone Man become the freshly appropriate soundtrack to bravura displays of slinky salsa or hot-to-trot tango. Those songs – performed live by