Mirela and I have been looking forward to going to see Dirty Dancing for so long that I can’t even remember when we actually bought the tickets. Getting tickets to this show is ridiculously difficult and even with the nosebleed section seats we went for we still had to book it months and months in advance.

Here are some photos pre-viewing at the shoebox and on the tube on the way because Mirela was just so excited to be going! And actually she was so excited that we even made it to the theatre early for once! heh heh.

Dirty Dancing The Musical was also penned by the author of the original feature film that we all watched as young girls (or young boys maybe?) at our girlie slumber parties (ah to be 10 years old again and staring dreamingly at Patrick Swayze!) so the adaptation, you would have thought, could be in no better hands. In truth the movie has substantially been brought across to the stage with Baby, favoured daughter, and her family visiting a summer holiday camp. Baby is the perennial good daughter so when she falls for the so-called bad boy Johnny, camp lead dance instructor, father is not happy. Its just a shame that the chemistry, romance and sexiness wasn’t brought to the stage tonight.

What I remember most from the movie was the chemistry between the two leads played by Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey and the pure hotness of the dancing. In tonight’s performance this didn’t come across at all. For some reason I just couldn’t stand the two performers tonight who played the Johnny and Baby roles respectively and admittedly though the guy who played Johnny could dance I just felt annoyed. There was one stand out performer for me and that was Nadia Coote who plays Penny. She was simply gorgeous and totally sizzled in her role as Johnny’s dance partner.

As the musical was pretty much exactly the same as the movie you also have all the great songs in there. The soundtrack to Dirty Dancing has definitely got to be one of the best ever and all the great songs were there. The singers were actually all very good but volumes on their mics were way too loud and so when they were really belting out the numbers I had to literally cover my ears. Such a shame because they had amazing voices!

There are some positives for the musical. The dances were well choreographed and the set design is imaginative, making the best use of the stage considering how many scene changes were required.

Overall, at tonight’s performance we did not have the time of our lives but we did see some spectacular dancing from Penny and the nostalgia it evoked can’t be overlooked either. Was it worth seeing on stage? Well, I guess there is nothing like seeing something live and I guess in that sense it was worth it. If only they could improve on the chemistry between the two leads (which is I think where most of my negative feelings come from) I would enjoy it more.