Dancing Shoes: The George Best Story Reviewed

Dancing Shoes: the George Best Story which broke the box office records in 2010, has audiences on their feet with standing ovations such is the magic of this musical play on George Best’s life. It is a play of massive popular appeal pleasing everyone across the generations. This production is no powerful that it deserves front page treatment in the media. It is such good news! Co-writer Martin Lynch points out the ‘astonishing statistic ‘ that Best was the world’s greatest footballer… out of a billion who had played the game in teams since the foundation of the English FA in 1863. Best, the former Manchester  United No 7 is indeed a legend, still deeply loved and admired by literally millions across the planet.  “Thinking of George Best in this contest is simply mindblowing” said the Belfast playwright. Set to tour theatres in Dublin, Salford Quays (Manchester), Glasgow, Derry and Limerick, this play will delight Best fans far and wide. The play kicks off in Best’s home street in East Belfast where his soccer enthusiasm and skills are more than abundant to his parents, friends and neighbours. The unique Belfast humour struck an immediate chord with the audience. Best in those prepubescent days was glued to his football and was not a lad for the girls… that came later. [caption id="attachment_26942" align="alignleft" width="400" caption="The full cast of Dancing Shoes."][/caption] As the songs in the play unfolded, the audience realise this is no ordinary musical. The music by JJ Gilmour and Part Gribben is top class befitting the world’s best player and performed by an experienced cast with an admirable list of credits to their names. Acclaimed actor Conor Grimes is one of the mostly Northern Ireland cast who made powerful solo singing performances. He played the Man Utd goalkeeper Harry Gregg who discovered Best in a training camp when Best tucked the ball between Gregg’s legs for a goal more than once. Aidan O’Neill’s performance as Best was solid and convincing from Best’s first boyish burst onto the stage in shorts dribbling the ball with his friends to the more adult activities of womanising and drinking later in his life living hard in the fast lane with world-class celebrities. Aidan never hit a bad note in the whole performance. As the play unfolded, the set was cleverly adapted as his own back street, the Harland and Wolf shipyard, the docks in Belfast, scenes in Manchester including Old Trafford, the good life in America and his own night club (Slack Alice’s) in England. Four boxes provided basic and convincing mobile set pieces but as the play ran on, like a football match, the whole audience knew that it would end… in this case with only one outcome. The death of George Best. Dancing Shoes is a play of two halves. The first is centred on the optimistic, up-beat, happy, early days of Best who breaks into top class soccer at Old Trafford playing his debut against West Bromwich Albion graduating from the the ‘boot-room boys’. The second section of the play, while still riveted together by the earthy Belfast humour that abounds in the shadow of H&W, was filled with a growing pathos as the hero gradually slid towards a tragic conclusion, an early death through alcoholism. In the first half, there are indications of the tensions within Best’s own family as his mother was by then drinking more heavily, and his father was stoicly doing his utmost to deal with it and cover it up so as not to upset the young rising star. But Best’s mother (played well by Maria Connolly) eventually dies and this acts as a reminder to the audience where too he is heading. By the time he left Old Trafford he was often drinking two bottles of vodka a day and liver [caption id="attachment_26943" align="alignright" width="267" caption="Aidan O'Neill play the excellent role as George Best never missing a note."][/caption] problems were just a whistle blow away. For me, the most memorable scene in the play was the piece where he is lying on his death bed in hospital and is visited by the then master of the green biege, snooker champion Alex Higgins, also from East Belfast. The conversation was of two men at their peak of stardom reminiscing about their great moments… how they conquered the world… just two ordinary lads from East Belfast who made it to the top. Belfast actor Paddy Jenkins played a very conving Alex Higgins and his split second, masterly bedside costume change earned a deserved clap as he broke into Higgin’s characteristic  sniffing mannerism much to the delight of the audience. Both working class heroes were doomed at that point, both darlings of the media.The soccer hero had a close relationship with the press, who fed on his every work. Higgins with throat cancer and Best with alcoholism and liver failure. In Best’s case, the poignant love for football combined with his addiction to alcohol, women and the media created a recipe for his downfall starting from the glory of soccer stardom at Matt Busby’s Old Trafford. Well-known Belfast actor Marty Maquire played Busby  who was always at odds to control Best. [caption id="attachment_26946" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Belfast playwright Martin Lynch who co-wrote Dancing Shoes."][/caption] As the play moves to its inevitable conclusion, Best’s death is symbolically achieved as he walks tuchingly through the (pearly) gates as if going onto the pitch at Old Trafford. The scene moves sharply to the post-funeral denouement  in the play and the widespread sadness of his death is so apparent from across all of his admirers. He was a flawed yet uncomplaining man, and his passing touched the capacity audience emotionally. This play must have been one of  Director Peter  Sheridan’s most satisfying and well-accomplished plays in his prominent career in the theatre. Sheridan said that like a generation of young soccer fans, a sa boy he fantasised of playing at Old Trafford. He said on seeing the script for the first time, “Somehow the writing connected me to my childhood dream. It felt like I was being give an opportunity to play for United again.” The power of the play co-written by Martin Lynch and Marie Jones had worked its magic on Peter Sheridan. Dancing shoes is pure theatre. It mixes the audience with the artistry of the actors (and actresses), the vision of the director, the craft of the playwrights, the setting of the Grand Opera House with a very human, lovable but flawed character of George Best in a play that is performed with excellent pace and intensity by acomplished local actors who understand the Belfast idiom and humour that underpins the play. It is a play about a local hero who aspires to an international level of recognition. Also, at the Grand Opera House, the paintings of artist Deepa Mann-Kler on George Best can be viewed. They capture the magic of the man that so many loved. The launch of the George Best exhibition was recently held at Windsor Park in Belfast and the paintings and limited edition prints which are for  sale will tour the theatres with the play. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Deepa-Mann-Kler/228982345424 Dancing Shoes: the Story of George Best will be around for many years to come. I expect the audio CD also to be a seller. Don’t miss it in the Grand Opera House in Belfast. ]]>