As a video engineer years ago I used the video of Dirty Dancing to test my machines. I must have watched it hundreds of times and never tired of it. Very cleverly the film has now been created on stage. Eleanor Bergstein said that she believed that fans of the film watched it so many times because they had a desire to " be more present while it was happening - to step through the flat screen and be there at Kellerman's". Well full marks to you Eleanor, because that is exactly what you have managed to do.
The scenery changes were the best I have ever seen. The backstage staff worked so tirelessly to bring us a constantly changing majical journey through the this classic. The set changes were seamless and we were constantly amazes at what was being created before our eyes.
I can't list my favourite parts of the show because every dance, song and scene ranked first class to us. Watch out for Lisa's Hula song in act two it was hilariously skillful and I am sure she enjoyed it as much as the audience made quite clear that they did too.
Just how do you go about creating a corn field on stage? I don't know but there it was and Baby and Johnny were having great fun practising lifts amongst the gently swaying crop. If that wasn't enough they then moved onto a lake and we were there with them!
The show closed to rapturous applause after a very welcome encore.