Dancing In The Streets – Richmond Theatre

Director: Keith Strachan

Choreographer: Carole Todd

Reviewer: Steve Turner

The Public Reviews Rating:

The publicity promises us a show which will make us “Experience the energy, emotion and electricity of Motown, a spectacular celebration of the music that came from the heart of Detroit!” and it certainly does not disappoint.

The performance itself is a simple run through of the hits, held together by our MC for the evening, Courtney Buchanan, who introduces each act with a little snippet of information or a question to test the audience’s knowledge. Thankfully, there is no attempt to shoehorn the hits into a storyline of any sort. However there is also nothing about the context of the birth of Motown, the racism of the day and the struggles that the artists had at the time. There may be those who feel that this is an intrinsic part of Motown music and so should be mentioned but I think that would miss the point of the show which is to showcase the music.

The band immediately capture the driving beat of the Motown sound which is at once familiar and yet still fresh sounding. The flawless pounding bass and drums hold everything together, with excellent brass, rhythm guitar and keyboards flowing effortlessly over the top.

The vocal performances, particularly the Four Tops and Temptations numbers, are wonderfully delivered and the slightly cheesy dance routines are skillfully handled by the whole cast. Carole Todd’s choreography has clearly stayed as close to the original routines as possible, and together with Tony Priestley’s costumes, provides an authentic feel to the piece. The only odd thing is seeing it all in colour rather than the slightly grainy black and white footage of the originals!

With each member of the cast taking their turn in the limelight, sometimes within the same song thanks to some inventive maneuvering on stage, it is difficult to single out any individual as they all perform so well, and with the help of some excellent wigs and costumes all look the part too.

With such a fantastic collection of hits to choose from, whether you are a Motown fan or not, this show will have your feet tapping and your hands clapping from beginning to end, and judging by tonight’s audience it will have you dancing in the aisles by the time Dancing In The Streets is sung by the whole cast.