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Dirty Dancing

Ipswich Regent

21 March 2017

Dirty Dancing – the 1987 American romantic dance drama film written by Eleanor Bergstein – is brought to The Regent Theatre, Ipswich this week courtesy of ‘Dirty Dancing On Tour’.  Last night a packed auditorium enjoyed an excellent performance by some young, enthusiastic and extremely flexible dancers/performers, who absolutely captured the spirit of the original.  The story sped along and left me wondering whether we’d all be home by 9pm…but enough material was found for us all to enjoy the second half!

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The scenery was minimalist but worked very well with revolving sections on either side of the stage, and a huge screen going from one side of the stage to the other, onto which outside scenes were projected to great effect.

At times, the music was too loud for the dialogue, which on occasion was almost impossible to hear; a recurrent problem with live shows at The Regent?

It was great to see local actor and playwright Julian Harries take the role of Jake Houseman; he seemed completely at home on the stage with the rest of the group and was clearly enjoying the ‘ad lib’ dancing at the end of the evening!

This has now become a cult show and there were whoops of delight from the enthusiastic Ipswich audience every time a famous catchphrase was mentioned, notably ‘I carried a watermelon‘ and especially the ‘nobody puts Baby in a corner‘ quote towards the end of the show.

Overall, the audience were treated to an evening of fantastic sensual dancing with a script which honoured the film impeccably.  Much kudos to the leading lady and leading man when his bottom was briefly shown whilst he was getting dressed; the ladies in the audience certainly showed their appreciation, resulting in a very long pause on stage until calmness was restored!

If you can get to see this Show – do so; you won’t be disappointed!

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