Stepping Out

It certainly felt like a school or church hall with a dance class about to start as the audience filed in to take their seats. With the action on the floor, modern day chairs and items left by dancers, an old school upright piano stage right and screens on wheels to section off the sides, the space had certainly been maximised.

Stepping Out is an 80s style show about tap dancers at a weekly class sharing snippets of their lives while they get better at learning how to tap dance. The class is led by teacher Mavis, in a perfectly pitched performance by Helen Rogers. Her sweetness and flexibility is contrasted sharply by her piano accompanying colleague and friend the fiercely strict and grim Mrs Fraser played by Claire Carpenter with comedic brilliance. They work so well together as foils for each other with even just looks between them: a joy to watch. The class is made up of seven women and one man, the fish out of water Geoffrey played with such innocence and simplicity by Paul Fish, who has some gorgeous physical comedy moments: one worthy of “Frank Spencer” was where a bicycle had been put next to ‘his’ chair which he started walking towards before he noticed it then just stopped dead in his tracks. It was a masterclass in back acting, how he was able to use his physicality to be so incredibly funny was amazing. Another guffaw moment was where he was in the middle of getting changed and a screen was moved behind him revealing him in underpants and a vest. Perhaps some 80s humour, but still fabulously and innocently funny and cleverly and unexpectedly done.

As the end of the show proves, these actors can actually tap dance and do it incredibly well, so to portray characters at the start who can’t dance, whose timing is absolutely shot, is very tricky indeed. Alison Kemish as Dorothy was incredibly good at this, being more than slightly out of time on more than one occasion, going in the wrong direction and creating the funniest counter shapes. It was also still believable – it could have gone too far and been stereotypical, but wasn’t at all. She portrayed Dorothy as a real and grounded person which was hugely fun to watch, with lovely details such as putting her bicycle helmet on the wrong way around yet not drawing attention to that. Perhaps the funniest moment in the whole show was her impromptu sitting in for pianist Mrs Fraser and getting carried away playing Lady Marmalade in a wildly enthusiastic way while Claire Carpenter as Mrs Fraser slowly walked in, reacting in silent horror while everyone else except Dorothy noticed – truly top quality moment, eye wateringly funny, it took the audience a long time to stop laughing.

Watching Tania Newton on stage is always an utter joy as you know you’re in safe hands, and this was no exception. Walking in as Vera, the monied, uptight cleanliness obsessed busybody who unknowingly always puts her foot in it and sometimes insults people: even from less than a minute walking in, the audience instantly knows who she is. We’ve all known a Vera. Yet Tania made her real and grounded and detailed and less of a stereotype than she may otherwise have been. Her costumes matched her personality, even her tap shoes matched her personality; the way she held herself, the way she spoke and even the way she walked: even her rubber gloves for cleaning. First class performance.

While parts of the show were a joy to watch the script unfortunately left quite a lot to be desired. It’s unclear whether this was because it had been updated to include modern references and mobile phones and whether something of the original got lost in the updated version. The script seemed to be in two minds whether it wanted the audience to care about the lives of the characters beyond the dance class: stories on all of them were started, but none of them were finished. Grace Riach played a lovely quiet NHS worker Lynne with some deeper moments. The character of Andy played with appropriate fragility by Natasha Wynn has a lovely innocent friendship with Geoffrey that could perhaps be more, but she is married, yet we discover something quite vital almost at the end of the show about that, which then doesn’t go anywhere. Sylvia falls out with Dorothy thinking she has done something in Sylvia’s personal life but we suspect the real culprit is someone else in the class – again, that doesn’t go anywhere, there is no resolution, yet they are all happy to perform together in stage despite this – which they wouldn’t have been in real life. Sylvia, Maxine and Rose are all written far too stereotyped, even Mavis has a story that starts and doesn’t go anywhere. All profoundly dissatisfying for the audience as so much time is shown starting these stories off – it’s either a dance show, or it’s a character show with dance, and this script is neither. Sadly, unless actors are exceptional – and some of these, as aforementioned are, it’s very difficult as an actor to elevate a clunky scripted character off the page in any more than a two dimensional way. This wasn’t helped by some of the dialogue and puns being truly groanworthy awful – like the worst cracker jokes or dad jokes. However there was one standout quotable line delivered by Tania Newton as Vera with perfect comedy timing: “it might be February outside but it’s always August under your armpits” which made the audience roar with laughter for a long time.

There were some interesting lighting choices during the first 30 minutes with action unlit and lit in the wrong places, yet in the main the lighting was super including at one point the follow spot going the wrong way – on purpose of course. A great added comedy touch. There was a strange use of blackouts with people leaving the class for quite a long time before coming back. It’s unclear whether they were changing costume, there was only one person to whom costume really mattered: Vera, as it was part of her character, so the waiting in darkness or sometimes looking at an unfilled space seemed unnecessary and old fashioned. It’s also unclear why some characters wore wigs.

The play culminates in a show that they are all putting on of course, as they are building up to this throughout, getting better at tap dancing, having various issues with canes and hats and timings. The choice to put this on the stage makes outward sense, however, from the audience perspective, they had been really close to everyone up until that point and suddenly making the actors very far away gave a literal distance which became an emotional one. The audience were therefore less connected to the action and the play. The end performance, where they broke character and all danced in hats and canes and black glittery costumes was super, but would have been better as an encore, where it was clear why they broke character and came back as their professional tap dancer selves.

A show with more than a few highs and some lows, as if it had been directed by one person and then come along and fixed by another. But it has to be said: the tap dancing was incredible: really super quality, a joy to watch: congratulations to Choreographer Lea Spells. This whole cast can tap dance with the best.

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