Footloose the musical

Thank you for inviting me to your production of Footloose and for the warm welcome as always.

Based on a true story the musical tells the story of Ren McCormack who having moved to the small town of Bomont discovers that dancing has been banned in the town and strives to bring dancing back and heal the town from a tragedy. 

Director Lloyd had worked with the cast to understand and develop their characters to give nuanced light and shade in their performances. The acting was tight and all the cast had developed their physicality, facial expressions and accents to suit their characters’ place within the story. There were grippingly tense moments, lots of angst and emotion as well as some excitement and high energy singing and dancing. 

The set had been designed using scaffolding with a raised section for the band which spanned the whole width of the stage. Having the band on stage gave a different perspective to the staging and meant that they were intimately included in the production. There was some great choreography set by Emma Jane involving the whole cast which complemented the different musical themes. It was clear that a lot of time had been put in by the cast to learn the dances and they executed the moves with good timing and precision. Under MD Laurence’s direction, the singing was of high quality with excellent vocal performances from both the leads and the ensemble, although the tuning was a little out at the end of the first act. The cast had clearly worked hard to master the many different styles of music and there were some lovely vocal harmonies and varied dynamics in the songs. 

This was a fun production full of buzz mixed with a heartfelt story of grief and a fight against oppression.  The cast gave their all, performing some iconic 1980’s songs with energy and enthusiasm to give another great HAODS production.

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