Review: Michael Flatley's Lord Of The Dance: Dangerous Games, York Barbican, until tomorrow

A richly varied audience was treated to some superb dance sequences, the reception of which left this reviewer in no doubt as to what the audience had come to see.

However, a good third of the performance could usefully have been dropped, including a very weak sequence that I dubbed “dance of the over-sugared fairy” and three songs that would have struggled to make the British Eurovision selection, so banal and uninspiring were they.

The two women fiddle players fared a lot better, as the music they delivered with a large dash of elan was on point temperamentally with the audience. A burlesque tap scene left a large proportion of the middle-aged women in the audience (myself included) feeling distinctly underwhelmed. It was at this point I began to worry that I wouldn’t be able to find much good to say about the show, which so far had been successfully stolen by The Dark Lord, the evil genius character opposing the Lord of the Dance.

Fortunately, there was a part two, where the pace picked up nicely and the number of really stirring Irish dance sequences increased dramatically, so the audience could enjoy a good clap and foot-stamp and feel that this was worth paying hard-earned money for.

The costumes were excellent by and large, and the performers very talented, but the backdrops constantly teetered on the verge of trite. The main sign that the second half had rescued the show by including the stirring tap sequences that Flatley became so famous for in Riverdance, was the standing ovation offered to the cast at the end.

Their hard work fully deserved the salute and it is to be hoped that this young and talented troupe are offered a show that is remastered further in the not too distant future.

Michael Flatley's Lord Of The Dance: Dangerous Games, York Barbican, tonight and tomorrow at 8pm. Box office: 0844 854 2757 or yorkbarbican.co.uk