It was a glitzy, glamorous night to remember at QPAC’s Brisbane premiere of 'Strictly Ballroom', the on-stage musical extravaganza based on Baz Luhrmann’s Australian film classic.
The film and live show respectively are about a professional ballroom dancer named Scott who has great aspirations to go far in his career. Scott (played by Thomas Lacey) is faced with the challenge of having to find a new dance partner, and he meets an amateur named Fran (played by Phoebe Panaretos) who sees his skill and asks to dance with him at the Pan-Pacific Championships.
Fans of the original movie were not disappointed; the musical kept a large majority of the brilliant script Luhrmann used. Heather Mitchell (who played Shirley Hastings) did a particularly stellar job of taking on the hilarious role of Scott’s mother, with all the best lines from the movie and more.
The music of the show was marvelous too, and didn’t feel out of place or strange to me as a huge fan of the original film. It had all the classics from the film: ‘Time After Time’, ‘Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps’ and ‘Love Is In The Air’. What seemed to be the main theme running through the show was a ballroom-esque number with the lyrics “when you’re strictly ballroom, life is perfect, guaranteed”.
What really stood out, above anything, were the costumes and colours. The theatre itself was a brilliant shade of, well, rainbow, and the stage hidden by a dazzling bright red curtain. The seats were covered in sequined material and the dancers’ costumes were radiant yellows, greens, reds and more. It was a feast for the eyes, and the actors did wonderfully in showing the over-dramatised attitude of the ballroom community that so many saw in the film.This reviewer’s very favourite part of this musical was the final scene, in which Scott and Fran performed their controversial Pasodoble to shocked onlookers at the Pan-Pacific. Their music was cut, and Scott’s father Doug (Darren Gilshenan) emerged from the audience, clapping a beat for them to continue. The audience joined in, just like in the film, and of course, the show closed to a fabulous cast-wide rendition of ‘Love Is In The Air’.
This show was a wonderful companion to the hilarious Australian movie, and being directed by Baz Luhrmann himself meant there was all the original elements viewers saw all those years ago.
I wish it were socially and financially acceptable to attend the same show “time after time”… Such a fun performance, and an exceptionally talented cast.
Five out of five dancing shoes!
