The film of Dirty Dancing turns 40 next year…and as a woman of a certain age, I can’t tell you how many times I watched it and listened to the soundtrack! Glancing around me last night, I’m not alone…lots of people around me were murmuring the classic lines before they came, and “I carried a watermelon “ and “nobody puts Baby in the corner” got rounds of applause and whoops!

It’s a film that has endured, probably due to the fabulous music, dancing and Patrick Swayze…so how does the stage show fare?

Again, I’ve seen it a few times, but not for a while. It pretty faithfully follows the film. You know what you’re getting, down to the script, the costumes and the fantastic dance moves. But this tour did seem fresher and slicker than before. And I liked the musicians onstage, in character, and often part of the action, as the Kellerman band. It really helped set the scene.

It also helped that on the whole there was some lovely singing. I particularly liked “In The Still of the Night” - a beautiful rendition from Asher Forth as Billy Kostecki.  And Robert Goose as Tito gave some great numbers too, especially the Act 2 opener “Love Man”!.