Strictly Ballroom - WYP / Piccadilly / Tour

This is another show that has really divided opinion. I saw it last night and it was better than I expected.

My background to this is that I saw the original run in Sydney a few years back and hated it. Didn't get the humour at all.

In this version, it's still not my style of humour, but I enjoyed it much more. The audience reacted to a lot more of them than I did, but I suspect also they're lines they know from the film.

Most of the funny lines went to Will Young, who is easily the star of the piece and I suspect the lack of a narrator was why it didn't work so well in its previous incarnation. A lot of the audience are there to see him as well. He is on stage most of the show, apart from a few costume changes and gets a huge reaction every time he comes on stage, particularly when he was roller skating. Also the biggest reaction during the bows, although he is not last to bow. Feels like he includes a lot of ad-libs, although they may be there every night.

Vocally, he probably sings about a quarter of the show. Most of the songs are just short segments. There are some sung in unison by the ensemble and some short snippets by other members of the cast. It works well. Will singing Time After Time is easily the highlight.

I hadn't twigged before the show that Will would be singing everything with an Australian accent either.

One near miss during the bows when one of the ensemble worked backwards and nearly took out Eve Polycarpou (Abuela) during her entrance. Luckily they recovered well.

I think the other thing I didn't understand when I saw this before is, despite the name, it's not really a dance musical. At least not in the way that a 42nd Street or a Top Hat is a dance musical. It's more a comedy musical, with dance as the background. With that in mind, it works much better.

There is a forced standing ovation at the end. Will did his best to get everyone on their feet for the dance number, but it did take a few tries. To me, it's an easy evening out for a show, but it's not quite standing ovation level. But most people did end up on their feet at the end, just so they could see.

Run time is longer than advertised at 2 hours 35 minutes.

That is a downside in the Circle seats, where I was, as they were very uncomfortable. They were TodayTix Rush Seats and they're always seem to be in that area. If I saw it again, I'd definitely sit in the Stalls.

The audience was primarily female. I only spotted one child in the whole place and this is a big adult themed for children. I don't know if it's the Will Young demographic, but this does attract some fuller figure women, so do bear that in mind as the seat spacing is already small. Thankfully there were a few spare seats (not many), so one of the larger ladies near me was able to move across one space, which made the show slightly more comfortable.

A few people have mentioned replacements for Will Young on the thread. This is definitely a show based around having a star in that role and I think you'd be very disappointed to catch it on a day he was off. Ray Quinn was mentioned as an option, but I don't see him having quite the right mix of camp and sinister. The comedy ability is probably more important than first class singing for this one, as very few songs are sung in full and it's mostly just the band playing. Will be interesting to see who gets the nod.

I suspect the vitriol comes from this being a much-loved title, and the general feeling it's a missed opportunity. The original movie was silly and camp, but it also had a strong emotional core and great performances, especially from Scott's parents.

Well Zizi always looks stunning and pulls thst dress off. Jonny would look amazing had he had about a metre cut off the bottom of that jacket. But hes beaut anyway so it doesn't matter! 

It sounds terrible and cobbled together.

My friend saw the final preview the other night and waxed lyrical about it. He's seen quite a lot of musicals, but is not a connoisseur and when I challenged the point that no one was singing except Will Young, it hadn't occurred to him that that was unorthodox in a stage musical.

Well, as expected we were upgraded from our grand circle seats to the Royal Circle, central row B. So that was a result!

We had an enjoyable enough time. It’s a fun show; sparkly, perky and ultimately superficial. Don’t look for emotional depth.

Zizzi Strallen is excellent and it’s a great shame that she only gets to sing one line in the whole show.

Will Young appears to be doing his best Dale Winton impression, except with a (bad) Aussie accent. The campiness made his singing seem fundamentally insincere, which really undermines the emotion the show strives for. But the audience did seem to enjoy his concert-style approach and he was warmly received at curtain call, so I guess people aren’t looking for emotional connection as much as a fun night out with some dancing and familiar songs.

Don’t think it will run for long.

I went to see this again in the week. It was due to the first show being cancelled before the first half had concluded.

I have to say I am glad I went back, mainly because of the finale of act one. By far it was the best part of the show and I actually really loved that part, it's exactly what I love about musical theatre, and stand alone, for me it's one of the best things on any stage, it's just such a shame the rest of the show doesn't match it at all.

I also loved seeing Zizi really dance, because all I saw was her developing the last time, she's an amazing dancer and her hearing her sing her one line was actually awful because it made you realise what you've been missing the whole bloody show! What a ridiculous choice to not utilise such talent! The person who made that decision deserves to never work again! But I cannot wait to see her again in a role where I get to see her sing and dance, it's a shame it's not here as she is adorable as Fran.

Also, while I noted a couple of improvements in the first half, the second half is really quite awful, especially one number with the bed and dancers coming out from underneath it, I'm not even sure what that was. Will didn't get in the way as much as the first show, especially during the Dancing With Myself number, he stood to the side and sang, last time he was hopping around being quite distracting.
I also thought it would be easy to finish on a good note, but they managed to screw up the finale, and took it away from what it was originally, a perfect ending. There was too much to it, and Fran and Scott most of the time were standing around.

When I went there was a block of empty seats. A lot of people seemed to enjoy it, but it's not something I want to see again.

Well I enjoyed it overall. We went on Thursday and were front of the Royal Circle. Rows B-G were half empty so I wondered why people in the Grand Circle couldn’t have been upgraded.

You are all right about Will Young and my two mates were also in agreement. But all in all the 80s jukebox element to it wasn’t quite as bad as I was expecting. It really would have been so much better as a play with music, much like the film. The non-Will performances were all excellent. I didn’t even know a Richard Grieve was in this and I thought he was fabulous as Les.

Understudy on for Wally (Will Young) so far this week

Baz - is that you? (Lurhmann - not Bamigboye)

Too tardy I’m afraid, Ivan de Frietas has beaten you to it.

Has anyone seen any feedback on Will's stand in?

I can't imagine those who bought tickets for Will will be happy. There seemed to be a lot of them both times I've been.

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