Grab your Stetson and pop on your cowboy boots, as this new feel-good comedy rides into Scotland. Read more …
It’s Monday night in Warbleswick as the All Star Line Dancing Club meet for their weekly class. The drama unfolds with a traitor in the ranks and mutiny on the horizon. Lining up the laughs is an all star cast led by Shaun Williamson (EastEnders, Porridge), Faye Tozer (Steps, Tell Me on a Sunday), Ian ‘H’ Watkins (Steps, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and Lyn Paul (The New Seekers, Blood Brothers).
Fuelled by a classic country soundtrack, this warm and funny tale of love, life and line dancing will lift your spirits and get your toes tapping. So come and Dance the Night Away to favourite hits including Redneck Woman, Stand By Your Man, Rhinestone Cowboy, When You’re Hot You’re Hot, Blue Bayou, Annie’s Song, Crazy and many more.
It’s all pleasant enough but, for me at any rate, in the end the joint was overcooked.
Mercury Theatre is the litmus test ahead of an upcoming national tour and, while the line dancing is surprisingly minimal, this may be to this production’s benefit, enticing the theatre fan as well as the country fan. A show you tip your Stetson off to.
Overall, there is a hollow feel to Rhinestone Mondays and its direction, with a slim plot and slightly irritating sound, the cast’s energy not being in sync and not quite filling the Festival Theatre (Williamson being the outstanding exception). However, there is also entertaining humour and some very familiar country songs that will have people singing and dancing their way home.
A Monday-night line-dancing class in the local boozer may not be the stuff of Greek tragedy, but it could be so much more than this if Joe Graham’s script wasn’t so limited.
Cajoling the audience into joining in the dancing at the end is an excruciating gimmick that can't disguise an otherwise flat finish.
Preview
Feature
Festival Theatre, Edinburgh from Tuesday September 20, 2011, until Saturday September 24, 2011. More info: http://www.edtheatres.com/festival