Olivia Fines and Richard Windsor in Saturday Night Fever
(Picture: Paul Coltas )If it’s escapist fun you’re after, this high-energy, unchallenging musical adaptation of the 1977 disco movie that made John Travolta a star is just the thing. As Tony Manero, the Italian-American youth determined to shimmy his way out of dead-end Brooklyn, Richard Windsor is a powerhouse of hip-thrusting, hand-jiving motion, and he’s matched by a graceful Olivia Fines as his haughty partner Stephanie. We’ve all become more dance-savvy thanks to Strictly, and the hoofing here is top notch.
Like Dirty Dancing over at the Dominion, this is a stage version of a trusted cinematic commodity, brought in from a regional tour – the vestigial set is a giveaway - presumably in the hopes it will be a safe commercial bet. Unlike Dirty Dancing, Saturday Night Fever has a banging soundtrack and lashings of 70s moves, rather than one tune and a bicep-challenging aeroplane lift.
All the original Bee Gee hits and more are present, impeccably falsettoed onstage by a trio of hairy lookalikes, to a beat you can feel in your kidneys. Sad numbers like Tragedy and If I Can’t Have You are sub-contracted to subsidiary characters.
Fines gets one-and-a-half songs, Windsor just the intro to How Deep is Your Love. They probably don’t have the puff for more. The big routines by choreographer Bill Deamer are exuberant, frantic and well-drilled, the duets demanding but elegant.
The film, based on an article by rock journalist Nik Cohn, is a hard-edged look at a macho, working class culture, where everyone lives for the weekend nightclub blowout and the chance of “making it” with someone. There’s a heavy-handed subplot about Tony’s revered brother, a priest, losing his faith.
Producer Bill Kenwright, who also directs, honours the themes of racial tension, unwanted pregnancy and sexual assault but his stage version feels somehow softer and safer. The costumes are a slick fantasy of what 1970s Bay Ridge might have looked like. Tony is nominally less oafish than his pals but still divides women into “nice girls” and “bitches” before he learns to change.
Windsor, a former star of Matthew Bourne’s modern ballets as well as a regular on Casualty, charms the audience like a hen do Hugh Jackman, flaunting broad shoulders and tight buns, while Fines is all flashing legs and razor cheekbones. Maybe Kenwright should cut the constant references to Tony as a “kid”, though: Travolta was 22 when he played the 19-year-old Manero; Windsor is 40.
The acting is pretty perfunctory throughout, but that scarcely matters while the music and footwork power the show forward. It all falls apart a bit towards the end, with a contemporary dance solo for Tony backed by a fragmenting glitterball, and an unintentionally hilarious nightmare sequence. Then Windsor – who’s barely been offstage – and Fines lead the well-drilled ensemble in a big-finish finale that puts it right. A disco inferno, right enough.
