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Review Round-up: Does Everybody Cut Footloose?

Last night (18 April), many national critics were at Stratford-upon-Avon, casting their eyes over Romeo and Juliet, the opening production in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Complete Works Festival (See News, 8 Feb 2006). Others stayed in the London for the opening night of Footloose at the West End’s Novello Theatre (See Today’s Other News for our 1st Night Photos).

While some of those went home dancing in the streets, others were rather more flat-footed in their response to Dean Pitchford and Walter Bobbie’s adaptation of the high-energy 1984 film starring Kevin Bacon and Lori Singer.

Directed and choreographed by Olivier Award winner Karen Bruce, Footloose tells the tale of dance-mad city boy Ren who moves to Bomont, a rural backwater in America where dancing is banned, but eventually gets the entire town up on its feet. Featuring hit songs from the original movie soundtrack, such as “Let’s Hear It for the Boy”, “Holding out for a Hero” and the title track “Footloose”, the show stars former World Champion Latin American dancer Derek Hough as Ren, with Lorna Want, Cheryl Baker, Stephen McGann and Johnny Shentall in the cast.

Fiona Mountford in the Evening Standard – “At least the film, with its tight denim and bad hair, was cohesively convincing of its time. If Karen Bruce’s production is of anything at all, it’s of the latest window display in Topshop. Without this crucial anchoring sense of period, the creaky machinery of the dance-ban plot simply grinds to a halt.”

- by Roger Foss

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	Footloose Listing Page

Internal Links
	Footloose - 28th Aug 2007 reviews
	1st Night Photos: Pop Stars Footloose at Opening - 19th Apr 2006 photos