Royal & Derngate, Northampton – until 9th April 2022
Reviewed by Ely King
3***
Millions of people around the world will know the name Michael Flatley or the title Lord of The Dance, and for good reason.
Flatley is known for his unique adaptation of Irish/Line dancing, pushing the boundaries of the art-form and transforming an already impressive dance style into something truly phenomenal.
Whilst Flatley wasn’t at the performance in person, there was a large company of equally talented dancers ready to continue his legacy around the world.
Even without the physical presence of the legend, he appeared multiple times throughout the performance via the LCD screen on stage. The show opened and closed with compilations of worldwide Lord of The Dance shows, complete with voice overs and closeups of Flatley himself. He even had his own solo performance on screen at the end where he ‘battled’ duplications of himself to show that, yes, he’s still got it.
For each performance the lead dancers will change and rotate, presumably to split the up the insane workload. For this performance the leads were:
Lord of The Dance – Matthew Smith
Dark Lord – Declan Durning
Saoirse – Lauren Clarke
Morrighan – Cyra Taylor
The Spirit – Cassidy Ludwig
Lord of The Dance is the biggest selling dance show of all time, and it’s clear to see why.
The talent displayed onstage is second to none. If ratings purely went on performer’s talent, this production would get full marks.
The way they perform in perfect synchronicity is borderline overwhelming at how flawlessly the steps are executed.
The stage was laid out with a main dancing area and stairs up to a higher platform, all of which were framed by a large LCD screen that displayed the relevant background for each scene. There was minimal staging to allow for maximum dancing and it worked really well.
However, the show was let down in a few areas, none of which were the performers’ faults.
Whilst it was clear to see that the dancers were all having the time of their lives and truly enjoying themselves, the constant happy expressions (a typical dance rule) didn’t really sell the good vs evil narrative that was trying to be sold onstage.
Due to no props or backdrops, it really was down to the dancers, their costumes, the screen and the music to help portray the storyline.
The story itself was your typical good versus evil narrative, something simple but easy to display. The ‘good’ and ‘evil’ dance troupes also allowed for a variety of musical choices and dance styles to truly show off their talent.
The ‘good’ performances were led by Matthew and Lauren as The Lord and Saoirse, and were often performed to a flute heavy, ethereal, fairytale- like backing track.
Matthew as The Lord is a fantastic choice, his joyous charisma is infectious, it’s hard not to have fun when you have a proud dancer beaming onstage.
Whereas the ‘bad’ dance numbers were led by Declan and Cyra as The Dark Lord and Morrighan and had a much heaver and darker backing track of electric guitars and guttural drum solos synonymous to fight scenes in action movies.
In group performances, there was always something that made the leads stand out, from Saoirse’s pink bustier to The Spirits all-gold leotard, everything fit seamlessly and aided character development.
The best outfits in the entire show had to be the black and red outfits and the black and silver finale outfits.
The ‘bad guys’ looked like they were ready to step into a video game battle in their over-the-top costuming and it was amazing.
The WWE style ‘Lord of The Dance’ belt is a truly iconic piece of costume and was a really fun edition. It was also fantastic to see that The Lord had their initials on the back of their white jacket just like Michal Flatley does, showing that they’re truly carrying on his legacy.
One outfit choice that was a bit disappointing were the tearaways. At the risk of sounding like a prude, seeing the men shirtless and the women in bralettes did nothing to improve the show and just felt very weird and forced.
It didn’t make their dancing look better or more impressive.
On the contrary, it was much more impressive to see the billowing skirts as the women twirled and glided across the stage.
It got cheers from the drunk people in the crowd, so if that’s what was wanted, mission accomplished.
Speaking of drunk cheers, I feel sorry for ‘Tom’ as whoever was there to see him last night were shouting out constantly, even during women’s solo performances. It was cringey, annoying, and the fact they weren’t spoken to by ushers is a miracle.
Whilst the dancers onstage all undoubtedly deserve to be there, there is an incredible lack of diversity. Whilst it can be understood that certain physiques may be desired to aide synchronicity, a lot of the cast looked like cookie-cutter duplications of one another. It’s pretty disappointing when the only ‘diversity’ to celebrate in such a large cast is the fact a couple of the women were quite petite.
It’s 2022, there are no excuses for lack of representation onstage.
An unexpected, but welcome, addition to the show was the inclusion of a singer and live violinists.
All of which were incredibly talented and deserved their own time in the spotlight
During the finale, it was nice to see the cast all just having fun and messing around with each other when they weren’t in the spotlight, you can see the true friendship and camaraderie this company have that is detrimental to dance routines like this.