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Eyes, hair, mouth: Darkie Armo Girl at Finborough Theatre

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Darkie Armo Girl, Karine Bedrossian’s electrifying one-woman show, commands attention from the moment it begins. First performed in 2022 and revived last year, it now returns for extra performance and it's an event not to miss. The show takes you through the thrills and horrors of a hectic life. She struts, shimmies, and taunts while revealing some horrific truths. She is such an irresistible storyteller that you find yourself hooked. The story is one of fame, glamour, abuse, self-harm, and suicide. If that subject matter doesn't sound like your cup of tea, you haven't seen it delivered with such high energy and provocation. It's currently at the Finborough Theatre . The show's title refers to a slur a popular girl at school once called her. Her ancestry is Armenian, and her parents were from Cyprus, where they fled the civil war and arrived in the UK with nothing. Shortly after she was born in Roehampton. The birth was an emergency C-section that left the baby and ...

The Will Young show: Strictly Ballroom @TeamPiccadilly

Love is in the air in Strictly Ballroom, currently playing at The Piccadilly Theatre. It’s the musical based on Baz Luhrmann’s 1992 movie about a boy daring to dance his own steps in the cut-throat world of amateur ballroom dancing. The movie was full of irony and light-heartedness with its corny follow your heart and ugly duckling storylines. Here the musicalisation hits this message over your head as if you’re watching the fall of communism.
Jonny Labey and Zizi Strallen in the lead roles as the unlikely dance couple give the show style and pizazz. He’s a rebel, she’s an ugly duckling. There is also a thrilling paso doble dance sequence to close the first act. They even get to sing two lines and sound terriffic.

But the show is superfluously narrated by Will Young. He’s also the band leader singing all the songs. While this isn’t necessarily a bad idea, here it gives the impression you’re watching the Will Young musical. And often his light vocals are lost in the theatre. The decision to over-amplify everything also makes it sound as if you’re listening to karaoke.

The show builds up to the competition finale. Will the hero follow his heart and dance his own steps? It’s hard to tell since it’s all squandered by a cheesy finale that doesn’t even involve Labey and Strallen. They just stand at the back watching. Perplexed like the rest of us. In the end you might be on your feet dancing. But not sure why.

Directed and choreographed by Drew McOnie, Strictly Ballroom is at the Piccadilly Theatre until 20 October 

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