Dead On Her Feet

Synopsis

An abandoned dance hall. Six young people desperate for fame, fortune and next week's rent. An unscrupulous promoter. A ravenous audience and a stranger with a past he's trying to hide. Out of the real-life phenomenon of 1930s dance marathons comes a new and powerful play which uses a thrilling blend of drama, music and movement to speak directly to our younger generation, brought up on a diet of X Factor and reality TV, against the backdrop of a world seemingly in financial freefall.

Our Review:

8 October 2012

"Why won’t you give my dad a job?" asks the boy with the placard in the famous Depression era photograph, displayed in the opening montage of Dead On Her Feet.

The question is not dissimilar to the thousands of Tweets that bombarded David Cameron when he appeared on Twitter for the first time on Saturday night, highlighting all the more poignantly the current relevance of this play, set in the desperate recession of 1930s America and exploring how far people will go for the hope of a better life.

Dance Marathons, the challenge of dancing non-stop for as long as possible, often for many days, were a real-life craze throughout the 20s and 30s. They offered ordinary folks the opportunity to win big bucks by allowing themselves to be shamelessly exploited by an unscrupulous entertainment industry. Sound familiar? So far, so 21st century. Instead of bucking barley for their 50 and found, many itinerant American dreamers crisscrossed the country taking par...

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Latest User Review

Jim MacS - 4 November 2012:

Fantastic evening of theatre - Jos Vantyler was particularly mesmerising and the rest of the cast were superb. The first half is stronger than the second but it's well worth seeing....

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