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The Twilight Saga: New Moon
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A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
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Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
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London,
Nicholas de Jongh's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Kate Champion (choreographer).
Cast: Leanne Rowe, Martin Harvey, Steven Hartley, Basienka Blake, John Conroy, Nadia Coote, Carol Starks, Robin Chalk, Chris Holland, James Leece, Jessica Brooks, Josie Kidd, David Firth
Description: A musical adaptation of the cult 1980s film about Frances "Baby" Houseman, who falls in love with a dance teacher during a family summer holiday. Written by Eleanor Bergenstein.
Times: Mon-Sat 7.30pm, mats Fri & Sat 3pm (extra mats Dec 24, 30 & 31, 3pm, no eve perf Dec 24, 31, no perfs Dec 25), booking to Oct 23 2010
Price: £15-£62.50
Trains: Tube: Holborn 
Phone: 0870400 0805
Website: www.aldwychtheatre.com
Josef Brown and Georgina Rich star in Dirty Dancing
Georgina Rich stars as the virginal "Baby" Houseman
Anyone wanting to discover how a musical oozes sex appeal without doing anything too near the knuckle ought to make for the Aldwych.
Dirty Dancing, adapted by Eleanor Bergstein from her fairytale script for the madly popular American movie, proves a virtual replica of the original, even if it offers little of the film's pelvic-thrust dancing.
Yet this stage version offers something distinct and more intimate than the celluloid experience. Artfully designed to titillate hearts and minds of teenage girls, not to mention mature ladies pining for their lost youth, a role here amply filled by muscle-flaunting Josef Brown, the musical's game of mutual seduction comes into close, breathless focus.
Dancing lessons for Georgina Rich's adventurous, virginal "Baby" Houseman, a doctor's daughter holidaying with her family in 1963 at a ghastly, upmarket holiday camp near the Catskill Mountains, lead little by little to bed with Brown's dance instructor, Johnny Castle.
Bliss and trouble follow until the ecstatic dance finale - I've Had The Time Of My Life - incites the audience to escapist euphoria-The scripts Bergstein wrote for film and stage surprisingly rise above sex - a bit.
Dirty Dancing discovers America in the socio- political upheavals of 1963: black civil rights protests have turned violent and Kennedy's Peace Corps are giving young Americans chances to help the poor abroad. Bergstein is unconcerned with civil rights but conflict over class, American materialism and the Sixties youth culture serve as driving forces in her plot.
Baby hates the pleasures of fox-trotting and waltzing, wants to join the Peace Corps and dislikes the hotel owner's conventional grandson. She finds her way to the staff quarters where the music beats sexily, bodies pressed close.
Rashly volunteering to stand in for Johnny's dance partner Penny (Nadia Coote), laid low by an abortion, Baby faces a crashcourse from Johnny in the new dancing and Sixties sexuality.
Stephen Brimson Lewis's set looks tacky but the use of video film helps in the athletically daring, dance rehearsal scenes out on the water: Johnny holds the thrilled Baby above his head as if she were a trophy.
At such moments you realise why the musical has broken all box office records, with £11 million already taken. Dirty Dancing in the flesh, as opposed to the screen, will offer a warm dip in fantasyland for a fresh generation of teenage girls.
Rich is a delight and a discovery, worlds away from the traditional, simpering musical heroine. Serious, wreathed in shyness and reserved, she dances elegantly to Brown's imperious tune and is gradually transformed from virginal awkwardness until she relaxes into happiness and Johnny's arms.
Brown, his spectacular agility expressed in leaps and spins, puts an enviably muscled torso to work, but his acting is not as finely developed as his body or his dancing. He needs to be more sexually fired by Baby and angrier about his life as a dancing stallion, servicing female holiday makers.
James Powell's pulsating, dynamically choreographed productionmeanders in the second half until Johnny's triumphant return to the hotel after being sacked. Josef comes up trumps, assertively dancing Baby back into his life. The light-hearted, frivolous young will have a ball with Dirty Dancing.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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If you want a great night out with a real feel good factor, then go see Dirty Dancing. It's exactly like the movie with a few added scenes. The dancing is superb, as is Joseph Brown as Johhny Castle! If you loved the film, you will love this even better! You will have the time of your life... honest!
- Carol, Surrey
I had the time of my life, I came out of that theatre dancing down the street, it was well worth waiting for the dancing was fantastic, the singing was brilliant and the extra bits that were put in were hilarious. I want to go back again as I didn't see enough, you wouldn't believe how many times I have watched this film at home. Its one to see, you never seem to get bored and it gives you that fantastic feel good feeling! Go and see it, its well worth it a great day out for the girls!
- Heather, Northamptonshire
Well in short I didn't have the time of my life. The acting was poor, the American accents were cringe worthy, the extra scenes that were added in were pointless. I would have liked to have seen more singing rather than just the tracks being played. That said the dancing was excellent, especially the lady who played penny. If it hadn’t of been for the last 15 minutes which were brilliant I would have been very, very disappointed.
- Katie, Middlesex
I have to agree with everything the first reviewer has written. My sister and I had "the time of our life" and will do so again when we see this show for the second time (which is still not enough!).
- Janet, Cambridge
Dirty Dancing The Musical - I've had the time of my life!
Having watched the film more times that I care to mention, I was concerned that the stage show would never live up to my expectations. I could not have been more wrong. Myself and 5 girlfriends have never laughed and screamed so much in one night. The atmosphere in the theatre was akin to a large "Hen Do". Every famous line of the show received standing ovations and rapturous applause from the almost entirely female audience. Josef Brown made our hearts beat faster than they have since Patrick Swayze originally strutted in to Kellermans and Georgina Richs portrayal of Baby was exceptional. I really can't wait for our next girlie night out - I know where we will all be headed!
Girls leave your boys at home and enjoy an incredibly sexy night of some of the best dancing and music I have ever seen on stage. The only possible way of improving the show would be for Mr Swayze to leave Guys and Dolls and venture to The Aldwych!
- Felicity, Bedfordshire
