(seen at the afternoon performance on 27th February 2022)
The monkey took a time-trip back to the 70s this past weekend. With “Get Up, Stand Up” the Bob Marley musical on the Saturday, and “Saturday Night Fever” on the Sunday. A sweep of 1970s music history in just 48 hours. And what a decade for music it was.
As the (expensive and amusingly photo-shopped) programme notes, Disco arose in the disused industrial spaces of New York, where young working-class men and women could live their dreams for a weekend night before returning to humdrum day jobs.
Hardware store employee Tony Manero (Richard Winsor) was one. Living to dance, rejecting kind Annette (Jasmin Colangelo) as a partner in both that and life and teaming up with dreamer Stephanie Mangano (Olivia Fines) to win a local dance-off, his story is, as Mangano points out, a cliché.
There’s a sub-story involving Manero’s friends, with a running commentary on how to resolve an unwanted pregnancy. Manero’s family also feature, his drunk father, brother the priest and church-going mother, but basically this is about the Bee Gees (Jake Byrom, James Hudson and Oliver Thomson) who loom over it all and sing like the lights will never go out in Massachusetts.
Pretty much one dance hit after another, “Stayin’ Alive” to “How Deep Is Your Love” via “Disco Inferno,” “Words,” “Tragedy” and obligatory Megamix of them all to finish.
Choreographer Bill Deamer really catches the moves of the era, and the entire ensemble are well-drilled in the finer outrageous points. Even though it was the fourth show in 48 hours and there were clearly a few tired muscles and voices in need of rest up there, the whole cast kept the steps tight if maybe not quite as quick as a good break might deliver them. No criticism, they were an impressive bunch.
Also worth noting was Gary McCann’s flexible fire escape set, with Nina Dunn’s well-executed NYC projections behind. Leaving space for dance but coming together when dramatic scenes were required, that this set can tour makes it a triumph for the design team.
Dan Samson’s massive speakers delivered the music (and pre-show traffic effects) with clarity, and Nick Richings gave us disco lighting even using modern equipment – a mirror on stage allowing those of us in the front stalls to admire a trademark colour floor of the era.
There’s sufficient material for an involving enough evening of nostalgic hit songs with a little grit to the story in the second half and a few heartfelt comments about equality thrown in.
The entire cast go at it with genuine enjoyment, delivering music and drama alike with good-natured confidence even after so long on the road together.
Winsor is a leading man on the cusp of understanding women, his confusion at both Fines and Colangelo’s attentions by turn amusing and frustratingly naïve. On the ladies’ side, Fines conceals scars and keeps us guessing about her truths, while Colangelo produces a range of hurt which reaches over the footlights most effectively.
Director Bill Kenwright channels his knowledge of the period as he did for “Cilla The Musical” to guide the actors towards authenticity, and brings heart to the family moments in particular.
Nowhere near the power of “West Side Story” perhaps, but still a telling slice of late teenage NYC life in the late 20th Century and a bit of a treat for fans of the music and feel of the time.
3 stars.