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Save the Last Dance for Me
Malvern Festival Theatre
**** For an evening of ‘feel-good’ nostalgic
entertainment, this show is a great success! It combines energy, colour, lively music and
romance to give audiences a wonderful evening of fun and diversion and
retrospective enjoyment of 1960s songs. The show has a light plot that is of minor
significance. Two sisters - the younger one is 17 years old –
decide that to holiday with their parents is likely to be dull. They
prefer to go off to Lowestoft together and stay in a caravan, where they
discover the night-life provided by the US airmen at a base in that
area. The airmen are looking for a bit of skirt to
enliven their stay away from their homeland; Marie, the more innocent
teenager of the sisters, is dreaming of a handsome young prince to live
with her forever. This simple context provides the framework on
which to hang the hit songs of the prolific writers Doc Pomus and Mort
Shuman whose creativity produced hundreds of successful songs for better
known artists of the 60s like Elvis Presley, the Drifters, the Beach
Boys and others. The music is paramount in this show and the live
band were fabulous. It was wonderful to have a variety of lead singers
of whom Jason Denton(Curtis), Elizabeth Carter (Marie), Sackie Osakonor
(Rufus) were particularly good. Denton has a lovely mellow voice while
Carter’s voice is clear, powerful and enchanting. The way in which the musicians slipped into the
acting roles – Rachel Nottingham and Kieran Kuypers as saxophonists and
parents, Alan Howell as Carlo and guitarist – worked brilliantly and
added variety and entertainment. So too was there great
variety in the songs: the unaccompanied
Hushabye with
the humming and clicking was terrific and so different to many of the
regular numbers with the band. Visually the show is very impressive too. The
scene with the deckchairs on the cold and empty British beach, and
another on the railway station at Lowestoft with the public reading
their newspapers, books and magazines were striking and visually
contrasted with the dance floor and band at the US air force base which
was all flashing lights etc. The cut-out dropped in to represent the caravan
and the campsite was simple and effective and at the end the final
backdrop of twinkling stars was an enchanting context for the final
songs and action. The dancing of the female cast was particularly
good. The casting of many of the male roles was noticeably a bit older!
The choreography was excellent, the comic acting by Alan Howell as Carlo
was brilliant, but the eye was invariably caught by the performance of
Elizabeth Carter as both singer and actress. She was, in terms of the
narrative, the centrepiece and, with the support of the lighting design,
engaged the audience in the emotions of the romantic story with her
charm and youthfulness. Similarly, Antony Costa (Milton) is a strong
actor. There is a little adult innuendo but for the most
part this is very light and innocent fun. As the show comes to a climax
the cast encourage the audience to participate and rise to their feet.
It is all slick and excellent light entertainment – an escapist evening
that delights especially those who remember that era. To 23-04-16. Tim Crow 18-04-16
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