Superb show packed full of song and dance

If you remember flares, knee high boots, Biba, Roxy Music and a time when fashion and music went totally mad then you must know that I’m referring to the 1970s.

If you went to see Dinnington Operatic Society’s recent 70’s musical Disco Inferno at the Lyric Theatre it wouldn’t matter if you had experienced that decade or not, because the songs, fashions and dance routines were so familiar.

Director Louise Selden and Assistant Directors Mark Maltby and Ashley Booker gave us a wonderful show. Their cast of all ages, with an average age slightly younger than usual, crackled with energy.

With dance routines which ran throughout the show everyone joined in. It was clear that choreographer Kirstie Probert and her assistant Jacqui Turner must have had a lot of fun with this one.

The wardrobe department went to town on the men’s outfits just as much as the women’s. Love those wigs too. Some people I won’t mention still look like that now!

With the show being loosely based on the theme of Faust the caution “be careful what you wish for” is mentioned at the outset and the idea of fame and riches not necessarily being all they seem to be, is a moral for our times.

Mark Maltby appeared in the lead role as Jack who envies club singer Heathcliffe (Lee Brammer) and hopes to be like him. Lady Marmalade (Karen Osman), the agent of the devil, persuades him to sign away his soul and from then on Jack’s pathway to fame is set as his personal life falls apart. Jack’s girlfriend Jane (Kerry Masson) then sees her fiancé change beyond all recognition. As a result Jack’s best friend Tom (Ashley Booker) is killed in a car accident caused by Jack and Tom’s girlfriend Maggie (Isabel Canning) is left to grieve.

You might think this all too depressing a story, but it’s also one of redemption as Jack repents and, in what proves to be a happy ending, is returned to the time before he signed the devilish contract in order to make the right life-choices.

Mark Maltby and Kerrie Masson excelled in their roles as Jack and Jane. Ashley Booker and Isabel Canning were perfect together as the bespectacled Tom and Maggie and Lee Brammer and Anna Maltby as Heathcliffe and Kathy and Scott Walker as Terry performed their parts with style.

Karen Osman was wonderfully devilish in her stunning outfits and had a commanding air that demanded attention. John Green beautifully hammed up his role with the song Fire and a stylish Corey Froggatt, in the cameo role as Nick Diablo, proved to be a brilliant actor as well as singer.

Alan Walker as the character with gender issues, Lily, was simply hilarious.

What fantastic singing and dance routines! It’s not often I leap to my feet to applaud, but on this occasion I did.

by Wendy Fidoe