Express Mortgages Express Loans Bingo Lose Weight Franchising Dating Shopping Book Shop Find Spare Parts Cut Your Bills Wine Shop Legal Store FlatShare Cruises

STRICTLY GERSHWIN**

TRIBUTE: But the Gershwins deserve better

Friday June 20,2008

By Neil Norman

AS ONE of the few choreographers who can fill the Royal Albert Hall with such extravaganzas as Swan Lake, Derek Deane might have succeeded in applying his techniques to an evening dedicated to the work of George and Ira Gershwin.

But lack of time or invention has thwarted his plans.

Three screens above the orchestra relay photos of Manhattan, the Gershwins and a miscellany of Hollywood stars.

Beneath them, the ENB’s company, including their star couple, Agnes Oakes and Thomas Edur, attempt to make the most of Deane’s limited choreography.

Guest artists such as 80-year-old singer Barbara Cook – whose phrasing and presence now outclass a voice which has all but evaporated – Tamara Rojo on loan from the Royal Ballet and Strictly Come Dancing stars Lilia Kopylova and Darren Bennett, cannot make up for the show’s inherent lack of structure.

Following a tedious opening it is left to Oakes and Edur to pep things up with The Man I Love. ’S Wonderful is a weird combination of ballroom and ballet with a collision of styles from whose wreckage there are few survivors.

As the evening drags on, it is occasionally enlivened by individual performances and duets. Kopylova and Bennett’s partnership in It Ain’t Necessarily So segues from the smoky ballad into a high-speed tango and Tamara Rojo’s metamorphosis from Amelie-like ingénue to femme fatale in An American In Paris bends to a sensual trumpet.

Conductor Gareth Valentine’s twitching derriere is as much of a distraction as the use of footage of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers that provides an unfairly competitive backdrop for the live dancers.

Not until pianist Jonathan Scott concluded with Rhapsody In Blue did the music sound like the Gershwins might have imagined it.

Although the audience seemed to enjoy the evening, my heart and head tell me that they – and the Gershwins – deserve better.

Strictly Gershwin
English National Ballet, Royal Albert Hall, London, 020 7589 8212, until Sunday