Flashdance
From Theatre Breaks
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Flashdance the musical
Booking until 15th January 2011 at the Shaftesbury Theatre
Review Roundup
Newspapers
The Mirror
Writing for the Mirror, Dean Piper said he was "absolutely mesmerised by the opening performance" and loved Matt Willis as the leading man.
He also praised principal female Victoria Hamilton-Barritt, whom he said will leave you gagging for more, particularly after the famous water scene.
Mr Piper gave a special mention to Arlene Phillips for the excellent choreography in Flashdance - now showing at the Shaftesbury Theatre - and recommended the production to fellow London theatre fans.
"Go and see it!" he urged.
Daily Mail
Liked it:
"...Victoria Hamilton-Barritt...What a belter! A beaver's cheekbones, a gymnast's physique, a big voice, bigger hair, and enough energy to fuel a Lucozade factory."
"Apart from the appallingly trite storyline, this show is much better than it probably need be.
"A great recession-buster of a night out."
(Quentin Letts): “Flashdance dislodges a fair amount of ear wax. This musical, based on the 1983 Hollywood film, is not only derivative but also manipulative, hackneyed, sexist, noisy – and shameless good fun.”
Daily Telegraph
Did not like it:
"If you like cheesy Eighties pop music, the hits from the film are present and correct. Choreographer Arlene Phillips has come up with lots of Hot Gossip-style dance routines for scantily-clad chicks, plus loads of energetic street-style numbers, but the dancing isn't nearly as spectacular as it is in the movie, and the famous chair dance and the climactic ballet audition prove deeply disappointing."
"But it is the clumsy attempt by director Nikolai Foster and writers Tom Hedley and Robert Cary to turn a trite but mildly enjoyable film into something starker and more hard-hitting that is the production's great weakness. The upbeat ending feels downright dishonest, and I left this supposedly feelgood show actually feeling both cheated and depressed."
Evening Standard
A mixed review at best:
Flashdance The Musical takes us back to the Eighties "...there are 14 new tunes by Robbie Roth, which parade an unsophisticated yet relentlessly efficient form of rock-inflected pop. We see the same almost workmanlike efficiency in the book by Tom Hedley and Robert Cary and in the lyrics by Cary and Roth."
(Henry Hitchings): “Ultimately, Flashdance, for all its dazzle, lacks a real imaginative freshness.”
"The show's appeal has everything to do with the performances. As Alex, Victoria Hamilton-Barritt radiates star quality. She's likeable and sassy, an immensely confident dancer and versatile singer. Also impressive are Hannah Levane and Twinnie Lee Moore as her fellow club performers..."
The Guardian
Quite liked it:
"I enjoyed watching her journey and, thanks to Arlene Phillips's choreography and Nikolai Foster's direction, the show brims with physical energy and is full of visual invention. All the same, there are aspects of this blue-collar Cinderella story that don't quite add up." "Foster also directs with great elan giving Robbie Roth's songs, 14 of them specially written for the show, a variety of settings and making good use of split stages, animation and video projections. And, even if Victoria Hamilton-Barritt as Alex has the air of a seasoned showbiz pro rather than a 19-year-old dreamer, she invests the role with a formidably restless energy and the right chip-on-shoulder determination."
The Stage
I think they liked it....
"Flashdance is a slickly achieved hybrid of an adult version of Billy Elliot meets Fame."
"A talented cast is led by Victoria Hamilton-Barritt, a dancing dynamo as Alex, who combines looks, legs, movement and vocals to brassy effect, and the sweetly appealing Matt Willis, formerly of pop band Busted, as her boss turned lover."
Flashdance the Musical
West End Premiere of FLASHDANCE at the Shaftesbury Theatre, London, from the 24th September 2010 starring Matt Willis as Nick and Victoria Hamilton-Barritt as Alex.
Set in Pittsburgh, USA, FLASHDANCE THE MUSICAL tells the story of 19-year old Alex, a welder by day and 'flashdancer' by night, whose dream is to gain a place at the prestigious Shipley Dance Academy. This musical, about holding on to your dreams and love against all the odds, features an iconic score including ‘Maniac’, ‘Manhunt’, ‘Gloria’, ‘I Love Rock and Roll’ and the Academy award-winning title track ‘Flashdance - What a Feeling’, as well as fourteen new songs written specially for the musical by Rob Cary and Robbie Roth.
With breathtaking choreography by Arlene Phillips (Strictly Come Dancing, We Will Rock You) FLASHDANCE THE MUSICAL promises to be the theatrical event of the year.
Based on the Paramount Pictures film (Screenplay by Tom Hedley and Joe Eszterhas, story by Tom Hedley) FLASHDANCE is an unmistakably unique musical about holding onto your dreams and love against all the odds. The show features an iconic score including the smash hit ‘Maniac’, along with ‘Manhunt’, ‘Gloria’ and the Academy Award winning title track ‘Flashdance – What a Feeling’ as well as 10 original songs created for the musical.
Flashdance dates
Tom Hedley will forever be best known as the author of the hugely popular 1983 movie 'Flashdance'. As he returns to the story of dancing steelworker Alex with a new, musical adaptation, opening at the Shaftesbury Theatre on September 26th 2010
Flashdance The Musical has posted early closing notices at the Shaftesbury Theatre where it will close on 15th January 2011. It had initially been booking until 26th February 2011.
Tom Hedley Interview:
When I came up with the name 'Flashdance', I used it to mean that exact moment when music, dance and fashion are fused together into a complete style. When you see it, that's it, a 'flashdance' - a living image. This play is about the way in which these highly theatrical pieces. Bob Fosse was the first director I tried to talk into making the movie 'Flashdance'. He was fascinated by the arena and the singularity of the lead girl, but he disagreed that what I had written was a movie. He insisted what I had not realised - that what I had really written was a Broadway musical. Now here it is, all these years later, at the Shaftesbury Theatre.
Adapting the film to the stage demands a deepening of the characters and the story becomes everything. One of the central elements that never made it into the film was a powerful mother-daughter relationship. We have that relationship living and breathing now on the West End stage.
I have never been one for strolls down memory lane. When I created the film in the '80s America was deep into a recession with savings-and-loan scandals and double-digit unemployment. Now in 2010 we have a return of the same social circumstances. It's important to me that the musical has a real contemporary currency.
I feel as if I have come full circle in a real way. But the most thrilling thing for me is watching a brilliant team of young artists reinvent a world that once belonged to me, but now clearly belongs to them. It is ultimately most satisfying that it lives again.
The Story in Flashdance
It's the story of Alex, a Pittsburgh welder who dreams of dance glory while mixing her day job with stints in seedy bars. Not only an urban fairytale that predates and prefigures both The Full Monty and Billy Elliot, it's now a catalogue of Phillips's entire creative career, from her innovative television troupe Hot Gossip to the robotic street dance of Starlight Express.
Flashdance Cast
Victoria Hamilton-Barritt and Matt Willis head the cast of Flashdance The Musical, which officially opened in London on October 14th 2010
The show is written by Tom Hedley and Robert Cary. Directed by Nikolai Foster, with choreography by Arlene Phillips. flashdancethemusical.com
Also in the cast are Sarah Ingram (Hannah), Charlotte Harwood (Gloria), Hannah Levane (Keisha) and Twinnie-Lee Moore (Jazmin), with Brendan Cull, Russell Dixon, Sam Mackay, Ricky Rojas, Andrew Spillett and Robbie White, as well as Ivan Blackstock, Tyman Boatwright, Myles Brown, Joseph Conner, Natalie Edmunds, Nicholas Gilligan, Zoe Green, James Hall, Ben Harrold, Emily Hawgood, Kirby Huges, Sia Kiwa, Lindsay Shaw, Maria Swainson, Amy Thornton and Daniel Uppal
