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Strictly bad boy comes good
Brendan Cole The New Alexandra Theatre **** IT HAS been a
strictly Strictly
weekend with the Strictly Come Dancing
Live at the NIA,
Anton & Erin
at Symphony Hall and finally bad boy Brendan at the Alex. As for bad boy . . . well that doesn't apply to
his dancing which covers everything from raunchy to graceful and elegant
with movement as smooth as silk. He is a pretty good boy out on the
dance floor. Not that he is alone with older brother Scott and
Andrew Cuerden joining him along with Hanna Haarala, Izabela Rai and
Melanie Hooper to provide six world class ballroom dancers – which if
nothing else shows the power of television. Before Strictly it is unlikely any theatre
in the land would have contemplated booking anything to do with ballroom
dancing unless they were looking for a hefty tax loss. The average man, or woman, in the street asked to
name a ballroom dancer would have stared blankly or asked hesitantly if
Lionel Blair counted. It was a closed world, closer to the wonderful
comedy Strictly Ballroom than show business. Now ballroom dancers, or at least those with a
berth on Strictly, are household names and, helped as well by
films such as Billy Elliot and Dirty Dancing, dance is
popular again as can be seen from West End shows such as Top Hat
and Singin' In The Rain. It is not just TV though. In Live and Unjudged
the six dancers, led by Cole, show amazing skill worthy of a much wider
audience than found at competitions in ballrooms around the country. Mind you It is called ballroom dancing for a
reason, it is for a ballroom such as the huge Tower Ballroom in
Blackpool, surely the most wondrous and beautiful ballroom in the land –
my parents took me there once for a Reginald Dixon concert – a vast
expanse of shiny floor. So to get three couples in tails and gowns
sweeping around a small stage, made even smaller by an excellent 14
piece band and two vocalists filling more than half of it, is a feat in
itself and to manage to dance there with grace and elegance and, at
times, shear beauty, showed not only some fine choreography but
tremendous technical skill. This is from observation rather than experience
mind you as I freely admit to having the sort of dancing ability that
would make John Sergeant look like Gene Kelly. Cole (B) broke up the evening into what was
essentially dance in the first half and ballroom in the second which
included a very honest Q&A session. He was not on the Strictly tour, for example,
because he was asked three years ago and did not like the amount of
money being offered to the professionals – those are the ones who
actually know what they are doing – and the amounts being offered to
judges – who don't have to do anything - and the celebrities – the ones
who don't actually know what they are doing. It was also obvious that his relationship with
Lulu is unlikely to result in them being invited to each other's homes
for dinner. As for birthdays? None of this shout happy
birthday from the stage, he was down there among them with birthday
greetings in person. Great stuff and the audience lapped it up. Throughout it all Cole came over as charming,
funny, and a really nice bloke, and very much at ease with an audience
that he teased and pleased in equal measure, and worked like a pro, and
work he did with a show that overran its estimated end time by more than
half an hour. He has the chat and the charm but it is when he
dances that he really speaks and two of the highlights, partly because
of the vocals, were the Viennese Waltz with all six dancers involved
with a stunning version of Whitney Houston's I Have Nothing from
singer Julie Maguire and a visually beautiful English Waltz from Brendan
and Izabela Rai with Iain Mackenzie singing the haunting Kenny Rogers
number If I Were a painting. He even sang a couple of numbers, with a passable
voice, including a duet of Michael Buble's Home with Mackenzie
and we had a dancing lesson for a salsa with a class of a roughly 1300
capacity crowd. The pupils varied from determination – a lady in
a striped top has probably not concentrated as hard since school a long
time ago – to the famed dad's dance, bent arms held at the side like an
arthritic chicken and a sort of rocking shuffle from side to side more
or less in time to the music. “No matter what Brendan says these are the
steps I do. This is my Salsa”. There was also a gent with a benign smile and
hands in pockets who must have been breathing in time to the music as
nothing else was moving. Stell it tested the strength of the dress
circle and grand circle. That morphed into Jonny's Mambo and the end of the first half which had opened with Oh Fortuna and a spectacular Paso Doble, with swirling capes, followed by tangos and an audience participation Cha Cha Cha. A mention here for an inventive shadow dance to Purple Rain with Brendan, Hanna and Melanie and a stunning guitar solo from Adam Martin. The second half saw the elegance of ballroom and
it all ended with an all-action jive with everyone on their feet to
round off what was a thoroughly entertaining evening. Roger Clarke
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