Just like any other old Hollywood musical (on screen), the musical is fairly boring, apart from some stellar song and dance numbers. There was lots of tap dancing and ballet, everything was brilliantly staged and the cast was very good indeed.

In terms of stage presence, I found Peggy (Kathryn Evans) to be the showstopper; I particularly liked “The Heart is Quicker than the Eye” and “You Took Advantage of Me”, where she and her respective partners managed to fill the huge stage. Usually it seemed very bare during most numbers, when it wasn’t filled with dancers, as the set was minimal.

Watching “La Princesse Xenobia” and “Slaughter on 10th Avenue”, both dance pieces, was fantastic, I also loved “On Your Toes” and “Quiet Night”.

I loved Sidney (Simon Coulthard – one of five ex-CATS in the cast) – he was both a fabulous dancer and a good singer. Adam Cooper (Junior Dolan) has a fair voice, although I wasn’t terribly impressed by it. His dancing, however, throughout the energetic (tap) dancing and ballet numbers, was stellar.

Sarah Wildor was wonderfully convincing as the eccentric prima ballerina; she had a remarkable talent for acting on top of her fantastic dancing. Anna-Jane Casey (Frankie) was great, although her character, like most others, wasn’t particularly exciting.

The only two people that exuded charisma in their portrayals of their bland roles were Peggy and Sergei (Russell Dixon). Sergei’s Russian accent was very pronounced and he was strong in movement, gestures, and especially in terms of his voice.

That I still found the show boring truly wasn’t the cast’s fault. They tried to make the two-dimensional characters come to life (a difficult feat) and did a good job – it was rather the slowness of the plot, the long talking scenes in between, which dragged on and on and became tedious.

I loved the comic moments, the brilliantly choreographed stage fights, which lent a spark that flared to a flame in each dance number. I’d have been happy if they’d just cut out the story and focused on the dancing ;D.

Particularly expressive were the sparse backdrops and scenery, as well as the relatively few props – I liked how this left room for the dancers (when they were onstage ;D) and also how scene changes only took a moment instead of minutes. The costumes were excellently done as well and afforded the dancers enough room for easy movement.