Format: Dance Show
Genre: Ballroom and Latin American
Date: 9th March 2020
Location: Floral Pavillion
Written By: Emma Bowles
Last night the Floral Pavillion was packed to the rafters, everyone eager with anticipation for Giovanni Pernice’s 4th UK tour. This year’s title ‘This Is Me’ promised us natural charm, combining with beautiful choreography, THIS IS ME was to pay homage to the music and dances that have inspired Giovanni’s career, from a competition dancer to one of the biggest names on the hit BBC show. Strictly Come Dancing.
Along with his cast of professional dancers we were promised a night not to be forgotten.
The show started with a bang, we were greeted by Giovanni in his underwear giving us a few house rules. Photo’s were allowed but video’s were not. Fair do’s. Definitely a spot-on way to get everyone’s attention that’s for sure. The audience let out a fair few woops and then the show got underway starting with a classic ballroom number that Giovanni excels in. Unfortunately for most of the audience, Giovanni managed to get his costume on nice and swiftly with a few of his cast members giving him a hand, I can’t help but find onstage costume changes fun to watch. This one was so slick and over before you could say ‘ta-dah’ and Giovanni leapt straight into the choreography. The full cast was made up of 4 couples and also the fabulous Nancy Xu who partnered Giovanni. Although she is fairly new to the Strictly cast having only joined last year, she is a featured name in the dance world. Cast in shows such as Burn The Floor and So You Think You Can Dance, she is the perfect choice to partner Giovanni with her wealth of experience. The end of the first number brought us into the introduction where he welcomed us all and, well let’s just say she certainly isn’t a shy character. The showmanship was second to none. He is extremely quick witted and funny! If his dancing career ever goes quiet he can definitely make a good living out of being a comic!
The costumes for this first section were the typical Ballroom attire. Fabulous, long flowing dresses for the women and smart tuxedos for the men. We even saw beautiful feather fans being brought in at one point as the perfect prop for a beautiful ballroom showdance. We were treated to a fabulous Quickstep to I Got Rhythm which showed the polished partnership of Gio and Nancy, even giving us a sample of their tap skills with a sprinkle of comedy thrown on top.
A costume change later and we were fully into the Latin American section of the show. To a fabulous start with a pumped up version of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough with Giovanni making a comedic glide across the stage in a variety of wigs and miming into a hairbrush, his comic side well was well and truly established. I Got Faith saw all the couples onstage for an ensemble Jive, the flicks and chassés were fast and furious, as to be expected from watched episodes of Strictly and the spins and lifts were thrilling and fun to watch. The audience participation section was great fun. It was based around the Vogue number that he and Michelle chose for their couple’s choice week on Strictly. For those in the know, this number on the show saw Gio and Michelle’s exit and this was lightly referenced too. We were informed that Michelle Visage had such a passion for anything Madonna based and she was one of Visage’s true idols. Giovanni had the audience in hysterics as he taught 2 unsuspecting members of the audience simple Voguing steps. This was nicely linked into Giovanni explaining about his idol, Freddie Mercury and telling us how he has impacted on his life. The showmanship that Giovanni naturally has is definitely inspired by Mr Mercury himself.
A Queen section took us up to the interval and saw Giovanni himself playing the drum section of We Will Rock You with absolute ease and joy. Is there no end to his talents? This Queen interlude also saw a dramatic Paso Doble to We Will Rock You, a cheeky Cha Cha to Another One Bites The Dust and a great attempt with LED drum sticks from the male dancers, which certainly was effective with lights of the drumsticks being the main focus onstage. It was sharp and well executed with only a few timing issues. The first half was brought to an end with a fabulous Jive to Don’t Stop Me Now which left us on a high and eagerly awaiting the second half.
The second half started with some fabulous rhythms and moves to a Salsa number. We had landed in Cuba and we were more than ready to get dancing! The second half explored dances such a Tango, Salsa, Cha Cha and saw some jaw dropping lifts from one of the couples which left the audience astounded. Kudos to all of the ensemble cast who gave so much energy and passion during every number. It’s so obvious that they all love performing. The male dancers treated us to a fantastic chair number with a tango twist. It was steely, dark and dramatic and we loved every second. One of my favourite numbers of the show was the Rumba featuring Nancy and Giovanni. It was so beautiful and pure and the slowness of the movements were suspended to the very last beat of the bar as so many Rumbas should be but fail to achieve. Not to mention Nancy’s fantastic costume which was littered with so many sequins it would not be out of place in Blackpool Tower.
The 2nd half flew by and before we knew it the finale was upon us. This perhaps was my most disappointing number of the show. Aptly named, This Is Me, I had a sneaking suspicion that The Greatest Showman song would sneak in somewhere and unfortunately for me it had to be the choice of the finale song. Putting my feelings aside for this number I did feel like the finale dance was somewhat lacking in pizazz and there were some ever so slight choreo timing issues on what seemed quite a different style of dance to the rest of the numbers in the show. Nevertheless, it didn’t distract from what was an entertaining and colourful display of a show.
I do wish that we got to know a little more about Giovanni. As the show was billed ‘This Is Me’, I feel like we only scratched the surface of Gio. It would have been nice to delve into his background of dance more, his favourite dances/styles and his experiences of growing up in the dance world. Maybe I’m a bit nosey but I would have thought there would have been a bit more featuring the man himself. Both performing and chat. All in all, This Is Me is a well put together display of dance styles and features incredible dancers with powerful choreography and dazzling costumes, led by an entertaining and charismatic professional. Well worth a watch.
Overall Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.
