Eireann, by dance company A Taste of Ireland, is the brainchild of director and producer Brent Pace and partner Ceili Moore, and comes to London as a taut, slick production, heavy with Riverdance vibes. It’s a two-hour festival of Irish dancing and singing, rooted in folk music and traditions, picking out scenes from Irish heritage and history. And the performers are absolutely superb.

I went along to Eireann having watched a lot of the original standard-setter in this field over the years: Riverdance. I’ve been a fan since the 90s, and I’ve seen most iterations of that show – including spontaneously dropping into a performance in Dublin when I happened to be there one weekend a few summers ago. I also saw Michael Flatley’s ego-tripping breakaway show, Lord of the Dance, when he brought it to Wembley Arena for his final run of stage appearances. So while I’m not a dancer, I have some sense of what I’m talking about when it comes to this sort of show. It’s also relevant (for political reasons I’ll get to later) that I’ve got some ethnic skin in the game, as a dual-passport-wielding son of both England and Ireland.

By a distance the standout thing in Eireann is the lead male dancer, Gavin Shevlin. In some ways, I’m loath to focus on one person in what ought to be a team game. But he is something else. He knows it too – as well he should. Brimming with seemingly boundless energy, he pulls off astonishing moves I’ve never even seen Flatley perform, and struts about the stage with the swagger of a rock star – patting fellow dancers on the back (very Flatley), and teasing the audience repeatedly. ‘Is it hot in here or what?’ he shouts. ‘Do you want some more?’ Hell yes, the audience wanted more. They’d have stayed till midnight. As a performer, Shevlin is consummate; as a dancer, the man is mesmerising.

But Shevlin’s next-level talent also highlights the show’s biggest weakness: it is heavily reliant on him. In the second half, a sequence involving him and, later, the other male dancers in the company, dominates proceedings – but there is no equivalent for the principal female dancer, Brittany Pymm, or the other women. We’re left wondering why. There’s clearly no lack of talent there, so why is the showcase so one-sided?

The production promises the use of technology to enhance the experience. The technology is there – tall, thin screens appear and disappear regularly; a live camera is carried around on stage by a techie, capturing live footage which is beamed onto these screens like we’re at a Taylor Swift gig. But for me the tech just gets in the way. The constant dropping and lifting of screens and the presence of the camera operator are distracting – I’d rather just watch these brilliant performers dance unencumbered by this jarring modernity.

There are ways the show could be improved. The storytelling is often abstract and reliant on audience knowledge of Irish cultural and political history to fill in the blanks. Maybe it just isn’t really for the English. The over-long narrated introduction suggests we’ll get more such narration as the show goes on, but we don’t, so some will be left wondering sometimes what exactly is being portrayed. Accessibility is something at which Riverdance excelled – concise, suggestive narrative snippets introducing scenes meant everyone could get them.

Maybe the lack of detail reflects a degree of deliberate obfuscation. In Shevlin’s big solo dance, during the second act (the one with no female equivalent), he’s portrayed as a man in prison. Briefly, the name Mícheál Ó Coileáin flashes up on the backdrop. Ó Coileáin was Director of Intelligence for the IRA prior to the Irish declaration of independence, following which he held prominent roles in the new provisional government as a member of Sinn Féin, until his assassination in 1922, aged 31. He was imprisoned in an internment camp in Wales by British forces in 1916, following the Easter Rising, which is the setting being hinted at in this dance. Portrayals of revolutionary figures, particularly those involved with violent activities in Ireland, remain a matter of sensitivity in the UK, and so perhaps Éireann avoids detail in order to steer clear of political controversy – and, let’s face it, some ambiguities in British law when it comes to what you can and cannot say publicly about people and groups designated as terrorists. By having Shevlin (appearing to) play Ó Coileáin, and the other male dancers wearing military-esque garb as they dance alongside him, Éireann perhaps tries to be edgy, but shies away from really saying what you suspect it wants to. Then again, if spelling it out gets you in trouble with the British, why should you? A nod to it will do, for the Irish in the room. They get it.

But this point leads to the big difference between Éireann and Riverdance: with Riverdance, there are real swings in emotional dynamics. There is joy, there is sadness; there is grief, there is relief. In Éireann, there is pretty much just good craic all the time. Sure, they’re portraying a controversial figure who fought in the Easter Rising, but only as a brilliant dancer showing off – demonstrating he can’t be kept down by mere imprisonment. There’s plenty of levity, but not a lot of seriousness. This is a shame, particularly when you think that there are moments of real tragedy in Ireland’s history. They could be portrayed without going anywhere near the IRA. The famine gets a brief mention, but there’s no hard-hitting treatment of the effect of British colonialism on the people of Ireland, or of the massive-scale emigration of young Irish to the USA. This ultimately gives the show the emotional range of a ceilidh. That’s not inherently a bad thing – I like ceilidhs. But without deeper peaks and troughs, it doesn’t pack the kind of emotional punch that Riverdance achieves.

Howsoever one reacts to the politics and their portrayal, it must be said that the audience loved Éireann. There is plenty of involvement for them too, in the form of singalongs and clapalongs. The singer, Brian Ó Broin, gives us some classic tunes, and by the end we’re all joining in. The last time I ended a night belting out Belle of Belfast City in a packed room I was a teenager (and no, I don’t know why it was being played in a Sheffield nightclub in the early noughties back then – it was just the way things went) – but there we all were, singing along joyously.

Let me also throw in a word for fiddle player Megan McGinley, who right at the end was finally let off the leash and dazzled with a spectacularly virtuosic solo, and who quite rightly brought the house down. The violin’s a very difficult instrument. She was note-perfect. That was special.

It’s deeply unfair on shows of this sort to hold them up to the ludicrous standards set by the global sensation that is Riverdance. But it’s inevitable, because that show set those standards. In terms of its themes and construction, Eireann isn’t quite at that level. But – and it’s a BIG but – the performers absolutely are. Most of them have been in Riverdance at some point. They’re world class, and they dance and play their hearts out. What could be more joyous than that?

Review by Daniel Bennett

Eireann is on at the Peacock Theatre until 31st August. You can find out more and book tickets here.

If you like this review you might also like my review of Choir of Man, The Great Gatsby and Wicked.