"A very disappointing Johnny"

A review of Aldwych Theatre by Genette written on Friday 18th of September 2009

My friend and I purchased tickets for the Dirty Dancing show on 16th September as a real treat for ourselves, we had been talking about it since the show opened! We sat there full of anticipation, good seats, and unusually for me at 5 feet tall, the tallest person in the theatre did not come and sit in front of me.... so my view of the stage was great. The music starts, my friend and I smile at each other and sit ready to love the next few hours being transported to world of Dirty Dancing....... oh what a terrible dissapointment...... some rather squawky singing and background music that made the dialogue difficult to hear was the first sign of things to come, not a great start but that did seem to settle down after a while so all was not lost, or so we thought. We both waited with excitement for the arrival of Johnny..... sadly though, what we did get was a rather lack lustre version of the Johnny we had expected, I think it would be fair to say, and of course I can only reflect our opinion, that David Erik in the role of Johnny appeared to be generally underwhelmed and dare I say a little bored by the proceedings throughout the show. There appeared to be absolutely no chemistry between Johnny and 'Baby' and Johnny's lines were delivered in a stilted and rather wooden fashion. The dancing seemed abit like everyone was trying too hard and that translated to be the least 'dirty' dancing I could imagine. The overall review of the evening for us was it felt like a 6th Form school production where everyone was keen to impress, I felt like a loving parent so desperate to support the cast but finding the event more of an experience in endurance than enjoyment. We did consider leaving at the interval but as generally optimistic individuals we decided to stay on, it couldn't get any worse could it? To be fair though, the second half was slightly improved but still far short of what we were expecting. The final low point was the addition of some men dressed as women in fur coats dancing around in the last scene, what was that all about? The highlight of the whole show however was the Fra Fee solo which was wonderful and the stage set was very cleverly designed. I have never taken the time to write a review but this was such a dire experience I feel compelled to share my thoughts. Sorry to the cast but for us it really didn't work on Wednesday! .

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