Strictly Come Dancing's Vincent Simone and Flavia Cacace present Dance 'Til Dawn
Cacace says the new stage show brings 'the worlds of musical theatre and ballroom dancing together'
The Strictly Come Dancing tree has sprouted a number of branches in recent years, with varying results. Of all the stage shows created by the BBC programme’s professional dancers, Vincent Simone and Flavia Cacace’s Midnight Tango met with the biggest seal of approval, from both critics and audiences – and with good reason.
An entertaining mix of superb Argentine tango, pathos, drama and strong musicianship, Midnight Tango played for three years, often to repeat audiences. But a need to try something new prompted the duo to push their speciality – tango – into the background, and showcase some of their other skills, as seen on Strictly. ‘We had a lot of pressure, because Midnight Tango was so successful,’ admits Cacace. ‘So we needed people to come back and be wowed in a different way. We’ve both danced ballroom and Latin for 20-odd years of our lives, and we thought we would like to do a bit more of that, as well as the tango.’
The result is Dance ’Til Dawn, a light-hearted dance show set in 1940s Los Angeles, full of Hollywood-style glitz and glamour. ‘We’ve brought the worlds of musical theatre and ballroom dancing together,’ explains Cacace. ‘So we’ve got some fantastic singing, big band music and a more complex story, with a murder plot, gangsters and police. We’ve sewn it together so that the dancing is the main thing that tells the story – but we also have a narrator, who plays a detective, so that people can keep up with the plot.’
Edinburgh Playhouse, Thu 3–Sat 5 Apr.