Review: Midnight Tango

26th January 2012

Introduction

So, after a long day teaching Tango, I went straight on to see Midnight Tango at the Aldwych Theatre, in London's West End.

As you do.

Here's my thoughts on the performance.

Venue

The venue is the Aldwych Theatre, off the Strand in central London.

Easy to get to, and - surpisingly - easy to park fairly close after 6:30pm in the Lincoln's Inn Fields area.

It's not a huge theatre, but still has a 1,200-seat capacity. It seemed sold out to me - I couldn't see any empty seats. We were in the Dress Circle, or "the middle level", which is, apparently, the best location. Fortunately we didn't have very tall people in front of us, we had a great view.

Facilities generally were fine. I bought a copy of the programme (last year's edition - but the same show) for £6. They also had other marketing paraphenalia there - DVD, etc.

Cast

The cast list is:

(With Teddy Kempner and Tricia Deighton in "comedy" roles - not dancers).

About the cast

The really interesting thing about that cast list is that it's basically a large section of the Tango teaching community in London - and as far as I can tell, all of the performers are also tango teachers in their own right. So there are no "professional stage dancers" there - all the dancers are "proper" Tango dancers.

So you have to give Vincent and Flavia a lot of credit for assembling such a cast list - it would have presumably been far easier to get 10 theatre dancers. It can't be easy getting that lot booked and organised given their other commitments; it's the equivalent of an "Ocean's Eleven" cast line up - at least in a local sense. Being picky, I think "international cast" is a bit of hype, really - most of the cast are London or UK-based. In fact, I think the cast is more "local" this year than last year's line-up. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

But importantly, from the audience's point of view, you know that when you're watching them dance, they know what they're doing. They have the background.

The music

The music is by Tango Siempre. The music is excellent, there's a wide range of choices, and I think it's well-chosen. The male singer especially is a fantastic vocalist - powerful and controlled.

The Story

The whole story is set in a bar in (presumably) Buenos Aires - it'a a basic boy-girl romance with a villain (Giraldo) and a parallel light-relief rekindled-romance between the older bar owners. That's about it, really.

There's not really any dialogue - very occasional announcements in Spanish, but that's about it, otherwise it's all dancing.

Act 1 establishes the scene and has most of the group dances. I lost count of the number of set pieces, but there were 17 tracks listed in the programme, so probably about 10-12 actual routines - almost all group routines.

Act 2 has more of the showcase routines with Vincent and Flavia.

Performance

So... the first big caveat is that, well, I hate to say it, but I'm not really a fan of Vincent's dancing style. To me, it's a bit too flashy and lift-y, his embrace is a bit too loose, and I don't really get any sense of connection with his partner. When you compare his embrace with the other dancers, I thought his was less intense.

(I'm singling out Vincent here because, watching them dance with separate partners, this seems to be more Vincent's "style" than Flavia's. I may be wrong - I've not danced with either - but that's how it seemed to me from watching them.)

So whilst the duo showcases in Act 2 were spectacular, I didn't quite get into them as much as the group dances. I preferred the movements when they slowed down a little, to a couple of the other tracks, but generally I didn't get so much of a sense of connection in their showcase dances.

That out of the way, the performances were very very good throughout - lots of lovely close embrace movements, whilst of course retaining a showy Tango Fantasia style. It's been a while since I saw a Tango show - I think the last one was Tango Fire a few years back - so I can't honestly compare the standard of dancing.

However, this was genuine Tango - there were few compromises in style or in music, and you have to give V&F full credit for doing that. They could easily have put together a "Vincent and Flavia Strictly Argentine Tango" show, with a few rent-a-dancers, and made just as much cash from that, if not more.

This was a genuine attempt to recreate a milonga feel (within the constraints of a show, of course), and it was all the better for it. The performances were, of course, all choreographed, but they were also led and followed.

(That said, it would have been great to have a "freestyle" section, where the dancers simply danced in an improvised and non-choreographed way - these dancers would be completely capable of doing that, and still make it look good.)

Overall impressions

A great Argentine Tango show. Well worth going to, with a lovely set of dancers and some genuine integrity behind the concept and execution.

~ David Bailey, 26th January 2012