Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks

Synopsis

When Lily, an attractive Florida retiree, signs up for six dance lessons in six weeks, it doesn't look like she'll last the course. But an unlikely relationship develops between the prudish widow and her cynical and equally lonely tutor. Michael knows all the dance moves, but perhaps Lily can teach him a thing or two about life.

Our Review:

30 November 2006

What is this strange concoction doing in the West End? The cry goes up for good new plays to counteract the musicals boom but this won’t help anyone’s cause. Richard Alfieri’s feeble dance lesson scenario is simply bereft of magic, even though Christopher Woods has designed a pleasant vista across the Florida beach from the well-appointed condominium. We’ve had Dirty Dancing. Here comes the sanitized, hot milk and honey version for old folks.

Or at least it seems so in the drab performance of Claire Bloom as 72 year-old Lily Harrison, a Baptist minister’s widow from South Carolina, if not in the accomplished, suavely attractive performance of Billy Zane as Michael Minetti, the dance instructor who answers her call. The play relates a not very bizarre, not very interesting – no sex, I’m afraid - lonely hearts duet in broken scenes rather like one of those “same time next year” repeat dramas.

Claire Bloom is a show business legend, but her...

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Latest User Review

89.145.233.212) - 20 January 2007:

Although overly sugary and clunsily written this little piece has a certain waspish charm. Seidelman's good-looking production's major asset is Billy Zane who brings presence and comic timing to his role: one longs to see him in a better play. Claire Bloom has her moments but is really suited to more substantial fare than this. Not a knockout, but not the disaster some critics would have us believe....

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