Saturday Night Fever

The Alhambra

By day Tony Manero is a bored assistant in a downtown paint store - but by night he owns the dance floor.

Tony and his pals scrape by in dead-end jobs beneath the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, but when they've clocked out their lives turn from black and white into colour once they hit the Odyssey nightclub.

Beneath the flashing disco lights, natural talent Tony meets Stephanie, a classy, social-climbing dancer with big dreams of making it across the bridge in Manhattan. Will he follow her there, and leave behind all that he knows, or is he destined to drift through life as a big fish in a small pond?

Based on the 1977 film, which saw John Travolta strut onto the dance floor and change the face of dance, this is a highly entertaining slice of Americana. It captures a moment in time when kids like Tony, from New York's diverse ethnic communities, found solace from tough working lives on the dance club scene.

What sets Saturday Night Fever apart from other pop musicals is its sense of reality; it depicts blue collar Brooklyn life with little compromise and retains the dark strand that runs throughout the movie.

As the mirror ball spins above them, Tony and his peers express their frustrations and desires through Andrew Wright’s slick choreography, to the Bee Gees' timeless score. All the classics are here - Stayin' Alive, Night Fever, More Than a Woman and You Should Be Dancing among them - and each song told a story within a story.

A talented cast of actor-musicians was headed by Danny Bayne as a terrific Tony, delivering a finely nuanced performance as the strutting disco peacock who's a vulnerable kid at heart.

Bethany Linsdell was moving as his spurned love interest Annette, a sassy gal whose heart is breaking, Naomi Slights was a cool, accomplished Stephanie, and Alex Lodge gave a powerful performance as hopeless Bobby C.

The overall tone is downbeat, but this is nonetheless a fun, sexy, poignant show.

Runs until Saturday.