To enjoy the highest-grossing dance show ever, one has to be prepared for a Las Vegas-style kitsch spectacle.
This is not your grandparents’ idea of Irish dancing: the speed was turned up to the max; the choreography owed a debt to ballet, modern and even street dance; the loudest foot stomps were amplified with flashing lights; and at one point the female dancers unexpectedly ripped off their dresses in order to dance in their underwear.
Spangly-dressed duetting violinists bobbed and swayed to maintain visual interest on stage – the energy only flagged during Hayley Griffiths’ Eurovision-style ballads.
There were moments of lyrical grace with female dancers in flowing frocks: half fuchsia flowers, half faeries.
Yet another costume change into fluorescent marker pen colours saw an intricate soft shoe dance ending in a cheerleader-style balance.
The storyline saw the Lord of the Dance mend the Little Spirit (Katie Pomfret)’s broken penny whistle, choose white-clad nymph Saoirse over scarlet temptress Morrighan, and battle a leather-clad gauntleted foe and his Rhythm Nation-style marching troops for a symbolic WWF/Elvis-style rhinestone belt.
Even when vanquished, he was reborn in a shower of silver rain, his every punch setting off pyrotechnic explosions.
This was good fun from what are surely some of the hardest-working dancers in showbiz.
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