The Dance Craze That Tied Legs In Knots.

Let’s Twist Again

Non Stop Nostalgia-Hit after Hit

Theatre Severn

Thursday 12th October

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the title of this show, it truly does offer hit after nostalgic hit and it was nigh impossible to sit quietly especially as the constant war-cry from the stage was ,“Come on everyone let’s hear you.” Hear ‘em they did as everyone sang, jigged and clapped through a collection of songs so nostalgic they each song arrived like a long lost friend and left the audience feeling warm and indeed as promised, nostalgic.

The show comprised two female vocalists, two male vocalists a four piece band named The Twisters, and a Compere. The stage was busy you get the picture. However with the band adopting to stand close together on risers a lot of the space was lost and an opportunity to use more room was lost.

The compere, whilst clearly a talented dancer and backing vocalist did warn the audience that his jokes weren’t going to be funny. At least he was honest. His material was extremely weak with jokes about his wife fresh from the comedy section of the British Museum. He had a polemic attack on texting and skyping. I think the train of relevance left the station long ago on this one, bearing in mind we have been texting for twenty years now, hardly new and challenging. Although the compere did nothing to detract from the show he didn’t help either and unless he strengthens his material, which isn’t difficult for a comedian, he will become exactly what he warned the crowd about initially. However he was a good sport and his timing and musicality was without doubt.

The Twisters were in a word, Brilliaint! Really great musicians, working tightly together, well done lads!

Now hit after perfect hit of nostalgia being played by really good musicians and sung by two lovely ladies and two great crooners; what can go wrong? To the vast majority of the audience there answer would be “nothing,” but one couldn’t help but notice something wasn’t quite gelling. One is prepared in this instance to put it down to slight fatigue maybe but there was something not quite so.

For some reasons the keys they pitched the songs in, were quite different to the originals, they seemed to have lowered a lot of the songs.Consequently some of their bigger songs , You don’t have to say…,Shout, Anyone who had a heart and Delilah were all lacking the excitement that those songs whisk up, immediately. The sound felt compressed. Rather than trying the big notes or big finishes they have developed a habit of letting it float away on a breathy minor chord instead of lifting the roof and rippling the river as it passes. There wasn’t much of that.

But one feels inclined to raise, for special mention: Mr. Danny Fisher, AKA the King Of R&R Mr. Elvis Presley. Probably the best Elvis Impersonators to come along for a while in fact since 1977, if that famous lager company made Elvis impersonators they would have made Danny Fisher! With a voice as rich as Branson he breathed his way so undeniably melodically, through Elv’s back pages.

The audience however were up for a good time tonight. They didn’t want sophisticated, analytical, heart searching theatre they wanted pop music and they wanted pop music from a time when all of us were younger. And by golly they got what they paid for.

There were some brilliant moments, like the moment the audience were encouraged to light their torches on their phones and wave them to “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” and they did. Lovely!

Memories are so selective, are they not?  When the compere said how nice it was back there in the sixties and how easier life was. I realised he must have forgotten Vietnam, Cambodia and The Biafra Famine Oh, and The Cuban Missile Crisis. Times were not better then, times were hard and for adults of the time, really scary and difficult. That is why nostalgia as a concept fascinates one. Try remembering the last time you cut yourself you probably remember the plaster but not the pain.  The human mind does deposit unwanted baggage and the past suddenly looks like a warm and cosy place we enjoy revisiting. Intriguing?

This show gave vast pleasure to the very full auditorium. The cheers were loud and the applause roared.  It will carry on touring and it will carry on bringing pleasure and one raises one’s cap to that.

This is a three star review

Owen J Lewis