I never knew that Dirty Dancing was a romantic comedy

I never knew that Dirty Dancing was a romantic comedy. Honestly. I always thought you’d find it in the drama section of the DVD shop, somewhere near Dead Poets Society and Diary of Anne Frank.

That was until I went to see the London West End musical version.  

Now, I should make it clear straight up that I am a Dirty Dancing fan. If I could write a book set in 1960’s Kellerman’s with Baby and Johnny, without it being a clear rip off, I would. For years whenever I have met someone by the name Johnny, I have not been able to help myself from saying their name in the anguished tones of Jennifer Grey “Juuuhhhnnyyyy!!’. Probably highly annoying to any man whose name actually is Johnny, but it’s kind of like Tourette's syndrome. I can’t control it.

So I thought going to see the musical would be a great idea. I even conned Jane and Lizzie into going with me. I can only beg their forgiveness.

I am not sure what I imagined it was going to be like. But given it’s classified as a musical, I had visions of a cast of people singing along to ‘She’s like the wind’, waving my hands in the air, perhaps flicking on a zippo lighter for added effect (even though I haven’t smoked in eight years and don’t actually carry a lighter with me). Then cue to end scene with me, Lizzie and Jane dancing in the aisles to ‘I had the time of my life.’ Because I really did expect to – have the time of my life that is.

Sorry, that was corny. I couldn’t help it. I was just getting into the spirit - because DD the musical production was corny enough to keep Mexico supplied with corn tortillas for about a century. I spent a lot of time not wanting to dance on my seat but hide under it. And wiping the tears of laughter from my eyes.

The problem was that it wasn’t so much a musical as a direct dramatic reproduction, right down to the watermelon and a few cringe worthy bedroom scenes. But the people on stage aren’t actors (at least I hope for their sakes they’re not), they’re dancers. And very talented ones at that. But Johnny (whose real name is actually Johnny. Strange coincidence or deed poll?) was no all-dancing, all-acting Patrick Swayze. In fact, he reminded me more of Ben Mendelsohn, only with a ridiculous he-manesque six pack that he kept sucking in. See for yourself. The Hoff eat your heart out.

I admit that the dancing was great. Even though the stage seemed a tad too small and I kept waiting for someone to get a gold heel in the head. But the acting was wrong, and the set and props were very, very wrong. Especially the log that was lowered like a gigantic boom gate onto the stage for the balancing-on-log-on-river scene. I’m not even going to try to describe the water scene itself. Let’s just say it involved an image of a lake projected onto a transparent sheet, with splashing water sound effects that sounded like my nephews in the bathtub.

Now I am no theatre critic, but it all felt a bit like a high school musical production to me. I may have been the only one that thought this however. When Johnny appeared in the aisles in the final scene to take baby out of her corner, women in the theatre were cheering and yelling louder than the crowd at Twickenham.  In fact, based on the 33,000 fans Dirty Dancing the Musical has on it’s facebook fan page, it obviously is just me.

Anyway, that’s my last foray into the West End theatre scene for a while – not that DD has turned me off forever but because on Monday I am off to Portugal, the land of…..why, Portuguese tarts of course. And if that’s not reason enough to go there, I don’t know what is.