Review by Scarlett Clegg
Flying Music’s production, Gotta Sing Gotta Dance opened last night at the beautiful Grand Theatre, Blackpool.
This vibrant, scintillating show burst onto the stage with a dramatic opening dance sequence in 1920’s style, but, thanks to the power of Velcro, quickly changed to top hat and tails for the song and dance number Putting On The Ritz, which immediately got the audience tapping their feet. The cast are all West End performers and it shows! With professional, polished performances throughout the evening the show was well received.
The next segment of the show took us to the swing era, with the three girls singing a medley of numbers in Andrews Sisters style. Next there was a battle of the UK against the US to establish which country had the best musicals and composers. This was done tongue-in-cheek and was very amusing, with excerpts from many excellent blockbuster movies and stage productions.
The show featured sixty songs – from the 1920’s right through to present day musicals and well known numbers from several films. There were too many to mention them all but one of the favourites was Taylor The Latte Boy. This contemporary number, written by Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich, was based on Heisler’s experience with a barista at Starbucks. It had the audience in stitches.
The second half saw an extremely clever portrayal of Gene Kelly’s Singing In the Rain. I won’t go into detail about this as it has to be seen to be appreciated.
My favourite part of the show was the tribute to Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. This featured numbers from several of his well-known productions, including the ever popular, Phantom Of The Opera. This was followed by songs from Wicked and the jukebox musical, The Jersey Boys, which again went down well with the audience. A highlight for the gentlemen in the audience was a scene from Gypsy which featured three burlesque dancers, sexily but tastefully presented.
The modern movie musicals section of the show featured several numbers from blockbusters such as Hairspray and Mamma Mia! This was presented a s a finale, but the audience screamed for more and this was followed by an extremely well planned three minutes in which snippets from all of the current West End musicals were performed.
Sadly, we then did reach the finale, which featured a good selection of glitzy toe-tapping song and dance numbers.
The friend who accompanied me to this does not like musicals, and earlier said that it would be ‘a trial by ordeal’ but that she would go with an open mind. She summed up the evening by saying ‘I couldn’t fault them,’ and I would have to agree. Excellent choice of material, something for every taste, fantastic singing and dancing and elements of comedy.
The theatre was reasonably full but if people realised just how good this show is, it would be filled to capacity every night. It’s only on until Saturday so my advice would be to book tickets before it’s too late.
Images from Flyingmusic.com
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