Strictly Ballroom Launch

On Valentines Day I headed to Cafe De Paris for the launch of the latest musical to hit the West End – Strictly Ballroom.

The show is inspired by the 1992 film by Baz Luhrmann it tells of ballroom dancer Scott who makes his own ballroom dancing moves, much to the annoyance of ballroom dance purists. The musical opened in Australia in 2014 and has already played at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in December 2016. There has since been some adaptations including the introduction of the part of the band leader, played by Will Young. The cast in the new West End version also includes Zizi Strallen and Jonny Labey.

We heard from the producer, Carmen Pavlovic, who spoke  of the shows themes, such as personal freedom, speaking up and daring to be different and the political metaphor of the piece of rising up and being true to what you believe in is even more relevant now than when it first came to the screens in the 90’s.

Carmen also spoke about  the fact that an important part of strictly ballroom is the Spanish immigrant world that Fran belongs to. Strictly Ballroom is a celebration of them coming together through dance. It is fundamental that the hero, Scott has a dance epiphany and Fran’s father is instrumental in this.

We also heard from Catherine Martin, not only a 4 time academy award winner but co-creator of the musical and Baz Luhrmann’s wife! She spoke of the opportunity to see Strictly Ballroom performed by a this young cast,reiterating the themes that Carmen spoke of. In particular she spoke to not living your life in fear and to rebel and triumph in the spirit of inclusion and love. Martin sees a parallel between a young Baz Luhrman and Drew McOnie, director and choreographer.

At the launch we were treated to a few extracts of some of the numbers from the show, including the beautiful Time after Time as well as Love is In The Air. The show looks to be not only hilarious but full of dazzling costumes and beautiful vocals. Check out these sneak peak videos!

Time After Time:

Love is in the Air:

Strictly Ballroom is on at the Piccadilly Theatre from the 29th March. Find out more about tickets here. 

If you liked this article you might also like my review of Everybodys Talking About Jamie and Hamilton.