Hot Shoe Shuffle

It was a new theatre company, inside an almost new venue and cripes the man who wrote it, is sitting in the audience right in the middle of the third row. That would be enough to set the butterflies fluttering in the sturdiest of stomachs.

No wonder that afterwards one of the performers burst into tears off stage. It was prompted by the standing ovation led by David Atkins at the curtain call.

You are allowed to be tired and emotional after tapping up a frenzy. And frenzy it was. This is the ninth different production of Hot Shoe Shuffle that I have seen and it was as classy and joyous as the best of them.

Being up close in a small comfortable theatre adds to the excitement.

Daryl Somers was the celebrity cast member, playing the old man Max, who tricks his sons into reviving their old classic tap dance.

He was a terrific showman who had the audience on his side. It was obvious that he had undergone a herculean effort to learn the tap routine and we forgave him for having to look at his feet from time to time.

It must have been intimidating for Daryl to dance alongside such a terrific bunch of tapers. The most extreme dancer was Jay Johns as Slap. He had to do the murderously fast tap dance at the end of the show. He paused with the intensity of a diver about to do a triple twist turn with pike for the Gold medal then built up the pace to a feet blur (I did sneak a look at David Atkins and he looked impressed).

Anchoring the musical were the steady hands and feet of Erin Bruce (April) and Luke Alleva (Spring), who would not have been out of place in any of the recent national tours of the musical.

Together with Pauly Maybury as Tap, they helped provide a terrific platform for the younger performers Jonathan Nash Daly (Tip),  Sam Boesen (Buck),  Louis Vinciguerra (Slide) and Sezgin Aygun (Wing) to shine.

The band, under the baton of Joshua Ransom, impressed with their clarity, the direction under Elle Zattera managed to eke out the humour of a script that is on the corny side, even extracting a few laughs from old timers who have seen the show umpteen times and Craig Nhobbs as choreographer tapped the rhythms of the show's heritage.

It was an exceptionally strong production which deserves a large audience. Setting up an independent theatre company in Bankstown with such high production standards is very ambitious. Local audiences should grab this opportunity with both feet.

David Spicer*

*David Spicer Productions manages the rights to Hot Shoe Shuffle on behalf of David Atkins Enterprises.