Strictly Ballroom the Musical – Sydney Lyric Theatre

Thomas Lacey and Phoebe Panaretos in Strictly Ballroom the Musical at the Sydney Lyric Theatre. Picture: Jeff Busby

Strictly Ballroom The Musical premiered on 12 April 2014 and continues at the Sydney Lyric Theatre, Sydney, Australia.

Baz Luhrmann’s 1992 classic film Strictly Ballroom lends itself perfectly to reinvention as musical theatre. The first of the so-called Red Curtain Trilogy, it tells the larger-than-life tale of competitive dancer Scott Hastings, whose chances of winning the upcoming Pan-Pacific Championship are compromised by his desire to perform crowd-pleasing dance moves not strictly permitted under the rules. His heedless behaviour causes his competition partner to abandon him, but he finds an unlikely substitute in Fran, a beginner dancer and the ugly duckling of the dance studio. Together, they discover a passion not just for making up their own steps, but also for each other.

With a creative team including Luhrmann himself as director as well as his key collaborators over the years, Catherine Martin as set and costume designer, John O’Connell as choreographer, and Craig Pearce as co-writer, the success of Strictly Ballroom The Musical would have been practically guaranteed even without the film’s cult status. The resulting theatrical experience comprises a rare blend of ingenious direction, inventive choreography, and breathtaking costumes, brought to life by a talented cast of dancer-singer-actors led by Thomas Lacey as Scott and Phoebe Panaretos as Fran.

Diehard fans of the film may be relieved to learn that Strictly Ballroom The Musical is a strikingly faithful adaptation, incorporating all of its loveable characters complete with costumes, hairstyles, and mannerisms easily recognisable from the original. Much of the film’s dialogue is similarly shared with the musical, right down to the fine detail of Fran’s apricot scrub. Sometimes, indeed, it works to the theatrical show’s disadvantage that the plot is so well-known already: the audience rather pre-empting the rhythmic clapping by Scott’s father, Doug Hastings, in the climactic scene.

So accurately is the film reproduced onstage that it is difficult at times not to draw comparisons in one’s mind with the familiar performances by Paul Mercurio, Tara Morice, and the original cast. That said, sometimes the stage presentation of Strictly Ballroom The Musical can add welcome touches absent from the original. In the film, when Scott and Fran start dancing to Doris Day’s vocals intoning ‘You won’t admit you love me’, the subtext may barely be noticeable. When Fran sings the same line to Scott to accompany their dance in the stage version, its significance as commentary on their developing relationship becomes rather more direct and explicit.

The show’s score features much of the music of the original film, including the immortal ‘Time After Time’ (by Cyndi Lauper) and ‘Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps’, as well as Bizet’s Carmen and Strauss’s Blue Danube waltz, to which original lyrics are added. Contributors to the new musical numbers include international songwriters David Foster, Sia Furler and Diane Warren, as well as composer-arranger Elliott Wheeler and comedian Eddie Perfect. Though the original songs largely comprise book numbers, they are nonetheless successful and well-matched additions to the show.

Clearly one of the most significant new arrivals in musical theatre of recent years, it will surely only be a matter of time before Strictly Ballroom The Musical launches internationally.

Christopher Wiley

www.strictlyballroomthemusical.com