United Kingdom Giovanni – Let Me Entertain You: Cliffs Pavilion, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, 26.2.2024. (JPr)
Dancers – Giovanni Pernice and Lauren Oakley with Pasquale La Rocca (dance captain), Alexandros Beshonges, Bethan Mitchell, Emily Layden-Fritz, Katie Ella Dunsden and Seamus McIntosh
Backed by Alex Turney (musical director, vocals, keys, guitar), Conor Mellor (vocals, guitar), Liberty Stottor (vocals), Jacob Booth (drums)
Creatives:
Director/Choreographer – Adam Burkitt
Assistant Chorographers – Grace Cinque-White, Luke Miller
Set design – Gary Alce, Paul Irving and José Lorenzo
Costume design – Matthew Hulme
Lighting design – José Lorenzo
Sound design – Erik Verkist
In the glossy souvenir programme Giovanni Pernice reveals how a career highlight was early last year and ‘being onstage at the most famous theatre in the world The London Palladium and looking up to see my Mum and Dad watching me, it really was a special moment that I will never forget for the rest of my life.’
Now I’m going to meander down my life’s pathway (as a watcher not a doer) because of the Palladium and something I will never forget. Several years ago, I returned to that iconic theatre for the first time for some while and catching my eye was a poster for a 1976 show with Shirley MacLaine that I was at. She was then a multi-awarding winning actor in several big Hollywood films and most notably the musical Sweet Charity. It is still – even after all this time – the greatest ‘Song and Dance’ show I have ever seen. Research led me to what the critic Michael Billington wrote about Shirley MacLaine’s show in his book One Night Stands: A Critic’s View Of Modern Theatre (first published in 1993): ‘Flashing those long legs that go up to her armpits, she demonstrated a new American Dance called The Hustle in which her head violently shakes, her hips sulphurously rotate and her body seems to be operating on an invisible dynamo; yet throughout this she retains perfect fluency of line … I could live without some chat between numbers … and the obligatory hymn to the Palladium. But I don’t wish to carp at a superb performer who combined high-definition skill with abundant joy, sex-appeal and bright-eyed intelligence. Most movie stars shrink in the flesh. Ms MacLaine, backed by an excellent five-strong dance team, expands to fill the house and sends you out of the building great to be alive.’
What has this to do with Giovanni’s Let Me Entertain You? Lots actually as most of what Billington’s writes applies to my reactions to this current show. I would disagree with him here about Giovanni’s interaction with the audience at the Cliffs Pavilion and his references to ‘Souffend’ which were often very funny indeed. (These included having walked around that afternoon and deciding against taking everybody out into the city for a drink after the show because it would be safer not to!) Giovanni had joked that the previous night’s audience in St Albans had given them a standing ovation at the end lasting 45 minutes (which later rose to 57.6 minutes). So, when everyone rose to their feet for the final number ‘Proud Mary’ and cheered the entire company to the rafters it was in tribute to their supreme talent, precision, synchronicity and sheer joy of performing which had become so apparent over the previous two hours.
This is what I remember most from watching Shirley MacLaine all those years ago and experienced once again. For a few hours in an otherwise depressing world when we left the Cliffs Pavilion it did feel ‘great to be alive.’ And what about that description of MacLaine by Billington, well, it could apply to all the eight dancers of Let Me Entertain You – women and men – and especially the charismatic Giovanni – an undoubted triple-threat as dancer, entertainer and singer – and lead dancer Lauren Oakley, not only someone who compels you to watch her when she moves but is an engaging personality in her own right.
Was it the 1992 Australian film Strictly Ballroom which helped inspired the similarly antipodean project Burn the Floor which turned ballroom dancing on its head (!) around the turn of the century and gave it rock-show production values. Strictly Come Dancing followed soon after on BBC TV in 2004 and the rest – including myriad spinoffs both on TV and in theatres – is history. It is not surprising that several of the performers in Giovanni – Let Me Entertain You have been involved in Burn the Floor and what followed it. Indeed, I have spotted that in 2016 I saw Lauren Oakley and Pasquale La Rocca in Fire in the Ballroom at London’s Peacock Theatre.
Let Me Entertain You is an irresistible fast-and-furious show (directed and choreographed by Alan Burkitt) with rapid costume changes that often seemed – as many of these shows have done – like a two-hour dancercise DVD performed live. (Thankfully, there is a short interval for the audience – and the dancers – to catch its collective breath.) Throughout, there are loads of Hustle (and Samba) hip shakes, along with intricate lifts and legs kicking upwards or flying akimbo. There is a feeling you have seen some of the routines before – and even earlier in the evening – but the dancers are so talented and full of love and passion for dance that Let Me Entertain You becomes totally engrossing. Standout moments include when things calm down a bit for a sensuous rumba for Giovanni and Lauren to ‘Alone’ and later a poignant and deeply romantic ‘Sliding Doors’ what-if extended sequence to Freya Ridings’s ‘Lost Without You’ and Adele’s ‘All I Ask’.
There is much fun to be had elsewhere notably during a celebration of the 1980s in which Giovanni and his dancers don exaggerated shoulder pads and fab-u-lous neon outfits. These costumes were as good as anything in the show from Mattew Hulme who elsewhere appeared to have raided his local Victoria’s Secret shop (and not just for the girls). Giovanni reminisced about ‘80s theme parties and a hedgehog with sticks of pineapple and cheese; cocktails such as a slippery nipple (‘I prefer sex on the beach, I think it’s much better’, yes there was the occasional innuendo); trifle (‘basically a fake tiramisu’); as well as Twister (and being introduced to a new game ‘Throw the keys in the bowl’). The ‘80s routine was danced to a string of hits from the era including ‘Venus’, ‘Sweet Dreams’, ‘Call Me’, ‘Mickey’, and ‘Alone’.
The second half opened with some rampant pasodobling to Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Holding Out for a Hero’ before Lauren joined Giovanni and was finally given a chance to speak and entice a man (Chris) out of the audience for the camp-fest that was ‘Beauty School Dropout’. It ended with him glammed-up as Cher and totally enjoying himself whilst Giovanni had donned a glittery pink suit with angel wings! Before the hollering and hand-clapping finale, Giovanni joined the other singers in the company for a barn-storming rendition of ‘Somewhere’ from West Side Story. Was I alone in wanting to hear Giovanni sing another similar anthem during the show, he genuinely has a musical theatre voice. All we really got was a very entertaining skit about musicals in the first half.
The staging was a simple one – and thankfully devoid of any LED screens – basically black with two sets of stairs either side of an entrance with a walkway on top and benefiting from atmospheric lighting effects (by José Lorenzo). Alex Turney and his keyboard was high up on one side and Jacob Booth and his drum kit on the other side with vocalist Conor Mellor often helping out by playing a mean guitar. As a result, the music – which only occasionally employed a backing track – was mostly played live which is not always the case with these dance shows. Like the dancing, the music was performed flat out and was sometimes a little too loud overwhelming the excellent singing of the two main vocalists, Liberty Stottor and Conor Mellor, who were extraordinarily versatile.
Let Me Entertain You tours until the end of April (grab the final tickets while you can) before Giovanni tours again with his friend Anton Du Beke for five weeks. Giovanni will return in 2025 in a new show titled (ominously?) The Last Dance.
‘Easy peasy lemon squeezy’ – one of Giovanni’s favourite sayings – this was one of the best shows I have seen at the Cliffs Pavilion.
Jim Pritchard
For more about Giovanni – Let Me Entertain You click here.