REVIEW: Dancing in the Street, Liverpool Empire

Feb 9 2010 by Jo Kelly, Liverpool Daily Post

STEVIE WONDER, Diana Ross, Lionel Richie, Marvin Gaye and the Four Tops impersonators were among artists aboard the carousel of hits on the Liverpool Empire stage last night.

The 11-strong cast of Dancing In The Streets whirled through Motown classics including Reach Out, Tears of a Clown, Baby Love and Let’s Get It On.

Although the audience began the show subdued after waiting 30minutes for the red velvet curtain to rise, the narrator soon seduced them with his dazzling smile, cheeky wink and saucy remarks.

He skipped onto the stage between numbers to give the history of the people behind the original hits.

Just before the interval, five rays of light shone down onto the motionless silhouettes of his backing singers as he delivered a memorable version of Jimmy Ruffin’s What Becomes of the Brokenhearted.

Dressed in matching red suits, they were later joined by The Supremes for River Deep – Mountain High which got the audience’s toes tapping.

The Temptations performers, in blue jackets and black dickie bows, also got huge cheers from the crowd. The crowd had no out and out favourites – for every song the cast sang there was someone in the audience who gratefully cheered.

Many whispered along as the Gladys Knight impersonator softly purred the beginning of Help Me Make It Through The Night and Lionel Richie's Endless Love and Three Times a Lady evoked lots of appreciative sighs. Not long into the show’s second half the audience, with few exceptions, was on its feet swaying along to I Heard it Through The Grapevine, It Takes Two and Superstition.

I found myself singing without realising how many songs I knew and how much I was enjoying myself.

JO KELLY