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REVIEW: Viva La Diva, Lowry
Kate Stirrup30/11/2007
WHEN former prima ballerina Darcey Bussell and best-selling opera soprano Katherine Jenkins announced they were teaming up to create a new stage show, tickets were snapped up fast.
This is despite nothing being known about the production except the name – Viva La Diva.
Such is the popularity of the likeable pair that theatregoers clearly didn’t really care what the show was about. It was enough simply to see Jenkins and Bussell perform.
You can particularly understand this in the case of Bussell, the tall, graceful dancer who wowed London balletomames for almost two decades at the Royal Ballet – this was a chance for us up north to see her in action.
It eventually emerged the show would be a sort of cabaret homage to the stars of stage and screen who inspired the pair to become performers.
The show opened with the duo backstage in a dressing room, discussing such icons. After an opening song about them, the pair then take it in turns to salute their inspirations. Numbers included Jenkins’ gutsy version of Deadwood Stage from Doris Day’s classic musical Calamity Jane and a ridiculously young and gamine-looking Bussell playing Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face.
Other Bussell highlights included a mesmerising flamenco in the Carmen section, and a whirling, manic interpretation of Moria Shearer’s classic The Red Shoes. And Jenkins (whose va va voom figure made her a perfect Forces sweetheart for the new millennium) was a fabulously frothy Marilyn Monroe.
But it did sometimes feel a bit odd, and hammy. I found Jenkins’ rendition of a childhood ditty about eating worms rather cringeworthy, but clearly other audience members thought it endearing.
And such anthems as the stirring Dance of the Knights from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet do really deserve more than a handful of jean-clad dancers tiptoeing around – maybe the forthcoming arena tour will allow the production to realise its grand ambitions.
The sets and costumes were simply gorgeous, and the band, led by Steve Sidwell, were outstanding. And what a luxury having a male dancer of the calibre of Jonathon Cope on hand to partner Bussell in the pas de deuxs? (The pair danced together at Covent Garden for many years).
So yes, it was sometimes silly and self-indulgent, but also an awful lot of fun, and judging by the warm standing ovation at the end, a rousing crowd-pleaser.
Viva La Diva is at the MEN Arena on Wednesday, May 14. For tickets ring 0844 847 8000.
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12/12/2007 at 16:59