Dirty Dancing @ Aldwych Theatre

Dirty Dancing
Aldwych Theatre
DirtyDancingLondon.com
January 4, 2010
Row D , Stall Seats 23 & 22

hmmm... where should I begin.... First, I will just say that I've seen a lot of musicals and I feel that being said I have some legitimacy in what I'm about to say about this one.

We walked in and I thought, hmmm much smaller stage than usual...much smaller theater than usual... I thought that since Dirty Dancing was so popular that it would be in a bigger theater... anyways... We had fabulous seats that I was lucky enough to pay half price for so we sat and waited for it to begin...

Ok, here goes, "It was the Summer of 1963 when everybody called me Baby and it didn't occur to me to mind"...

It started and I immediately noticed a difference in the accent of "Johnny" (Patrick Swayze) I'm in London so that's to be somewhat expected, but this one was over the top...his accent(s) were all over the place, I felt like I was traveling all over the world listening to him, was he was Texas? Boston? Jersey? New York? Ireland? Scotland? UK? who knew? I'm not sure he even knew? Needless to say it was a big distraction. He wasn't the only one with accent problems that night "Penny" seemed to be in and out with somewhat of an Australian accent... and their were others throughout the performance...

There was also the moment when this girl told me that we could move over a seat because no one was going to sit in it. So we did. About 15 minutes later she was loud and would not stop talking. YOU DONT TALK NONSTOP DURING A SHOW, IM SORRY PEOPLE THAT'S JUST THE WAY IT IS. It's rude. People pay a lot of money for these tickets. They pay to hear the people on stage, not you. So my point here is if you are not on stage please do the right thing and BE QUIET. Moments after she SCREAMED "Watermelon" I kindly tapped her on the knee and said "sshh, I can't hear" and seconds later she told me to get out of her seat (I knew this was coming) so I said "I will move only if you shut the F up". Yes, I pulled the classy string and dropped the F bomb because I needed it sound forceful and not an option. So after this she was quiet for the most part.

Now back to the show:
I kept looking around for the Orchestra, but never saw it or heard it for that matter. They kept playing the music from a CD ~ This was making me mad ~ We paid money to hear people sing, to perform, after all they DID call this a MUSICAL, not a come here and play you a CD... I think they actually sang 2 maybe 3 songs during the entire show ~ How rude of them! I was insulted ~ I was disappointed ~ we didn't expect that and sure didn't like it.

They had this circular platform that was used nonstop, it was kind of annoying after a while.

And what was up with all the underlying Freedom Rider stuff? I don't think that was part of the original movie?

This is the first time that at intermission I actually thought about leaving.

There were so many things wrong with this performance. It made me sad.

Mike gave it a 4 out of 10 and I gave it a 5 out of 10. If the girl who played Baby wouldn't of been decent it would of been lower.

Dear Aldwych Theatre, just because there is music from a CD playing at the performance, doesn't mean its a musical. I also don't know of many musicals that only sing 2 or 3 of the shows songs. When I heard a CD playing "Hungry Eyes" I wilted.

Utterly disappointed that I did not have the time of my life and I hope I never feel this way again,
WMMc

P.S. Nobody puts Baby in the corner!