United Kingdom GIOVANNI – The Last Dance: Cliffs Pavilion, Southend-on-Sea, Essex, 22.3.2025. (JPr)
Dancers – Giovanni Pernice – with Erica Martinelli (lead dancer), Charlotte Gallagher (vocalist), Alex Brown, Ellie Fergusson, Alicia Mencia, Holly Skiggs, Alex Sturman, and Redmand Rance
Creatives:
Director and Choreographer – Scott Coldwell
Producers – Paul and Elizabeth Irving
Assistant Producer and Set design – Gary Alce
Musical supervisor – Matthew Howes
Costume design – Robyn Manton
Lighting design – Jose Lorenzo
In the glossy souvenir programme producer Paul Irving reminds us how star dance Giovanni Pernice’s ‘solo tours alone (not including those with Anton [Du Beke]) have been performed to over half a million live audience members. Gio has performed at over 150 different venues, had over 500 standing ovations, met over 30,000 of you at the Meet and Greets, and by the end of this tour, would have sold out the London Palladium on three separate occasions.’ Giovanni, himself, says ‘I really really LOVE touring around the UK and Ireland, I have done it every year (covid permitting) since 2017 and, with my hand on my heart, it’s the thing I adore the most … I feel now it is the right time to take a little break. This doesn’t mean that it is my last tour ever … just for a little while.’
There was no real theme to this current show though perhaps a suggestion of a beginning and an ending. Was the suitcase on the stage at the start with the cloth-capped Alex Sturman a metaphor for Giovanni’s arrival in the UK in 2015: and did dancing with Sturman and his suitcase at the end suggest farewell? To the strains of ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ we hear Giovanni intone ‘I’ve had so many amazing moments in my career, but it has not always been an easy ride as I’m sure you know. People can say what they want but nothing can take away what I’ve achieved. All I know, it’s good to be back.’
As for the show itself, with the occasional bare chests (the men!), the costumes have all the sparkle, glitz and glamour you would expect from dance shows like this. The pre-recorded music has been carefully arranged for Scott Coldwell’s choreography and although there are some disembodied voices heard, the backing tracks are frequently enhanced by Charlotte Gallagher’s impressive onstage vocals; her highlight being the soulful singing of James Brown’s ‘It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World’.
The opening routine is to ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ (Guns N’ Roses) with the company in newspaper-print dresses or shirts with Giovanni’s photo on the back. They hold up newspapers with the headlines celebrating his achievements. From then on it is clear that – to paraphrase Shakespeare – ‘we have come to praise Giovanni, not to bury him’. After cheekily saying ‘The more you give it to us, the more we give it to you’ and glorying in being described as ‘The Real Italian Stallion’ Giovanni successfully balances boasting he is god’s gift to (mainly) women with revealing a genuine rapport with his audience as a triple threat; comic, dancer, and, rather late in the show, singer.
Emphasising the eclectic nature of The Last Dance it was time to go on tour with Giovanni beginning in Scotland. A bag-piped ‘Scotland the Brave’ morphed into a Scottish flag-waving ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ (The Proclaimers), with Giovanni prancing about in a kilt with his sporran bobbing as if it had a mind of its own. Audience participation meant Polly was brought up on stage to celebrate the English seaside as the dancers paraded in swimwear to LAMFO’s ‘Sexy and I Know It’. Then we went to ‘Giovanni’s Irish Pub … Dublin 1990 … Good Friends Good Times’ for some Irish dancing from the company (to versions of ‘Galway Girl’) which Giovanni claimed he was incapable of doing, though watching him try made everyone roar with laughter. Despite the odd more lyrical moment from Giovanni and lead dancer Erica Martinelli the generally adrenalin fuelled dancing of the first half reached its unrestrained climax with ‘The Greatest Show’.
Unless I missed it, the start of the second half was an unannounced Prince tribute beginning with more high-energy bounding around to ‘When Doves Cry’, and after some cha-cha-chaing there was a The Last Dance highlight with Giovanni and Erica’s sultry Argentine Tango to ‘Purple Rain’. Reflecting on how his life changed after joining Strictly Come Dancing and how thanks to his audience’s support he felt ‘We could rock the world’ this ushered in a further tribute, this time to Freddie Mercury. The Cliffs Pavilion indeed rocked to the ensemble dancing for Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’. Giovanni reflected on how he was having ‘the best time of my life’ but then – for reasons we all know – ‘my world collapsed’ and he feared the end of his career and was abandoned by some so-called friends. He revealed how he had toured last year ‘pretending everything was fine’ but by channelling his hero Freddie he realised ‘The Show Must Go On’ and he sang this with Charlotte. It was a soaring, valedictory statement and was followed by a rampant ‘I’m Still Standing’ (Elton John) from all concerned.
A standing ovation followed Giovanni getting this off his chest but there was still more to come, we heard how he ‘went all the way’ with his celebrity partner Bianca Guaccero and won Italy’s Ballando con le Stelle (Dancing with the Stars) last year. There was some good-natured fun with Iris and Bethany in the audience before with Giovanni offstage the rest of the dancers shone in ‘Black or White’ their Michael Jackson tribute.
There are still many opportunities to see this feelgood show before it reaches the London Palladium at the beginning of May (‘May the Fourth be with you!’) and, joking, for Giovanni to make ‘Lots more mone … memories’. He thanked us ‘for being with him in the good times, bad times, and for whatever the future holds … The next song is your song’. Cue more Elton John. By the last dancing of The Last Dance the entire audience were reluctant to let Giovanni go and were on their feet joining in the exuberant sambaing to Gloria Estefan’s ‘Conga’.
So ‘Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!’ and goodbye for now Giovanni, or at least until you return to the Cliffs Pavilion with Anton in July.
Jim Pritchard
For remaining dates on the GIOVANNI – The Last Dance tour click here.