'On Your Toes' reviews Cooper in reviews Mukhamedov in reviews Wildor in reviews recent Adam Cooper and reviews more Graham Watts reviews

Rodgers & Hart’s score was butchered for the film and most of the original songbook was written out. The movie was not a success and is notable only for being an early introduction to the dancing talent of Donald O’Connor in a minor role.

It is worth considering the context of Astaire’s decision to turn down ‘On Your Toes’. Although, by that time, he was already a massive Vaudeville and Broadway star, he had not yet broken into Hollywood. His movie career only began with supporting roles in ‘Dancing Lady’ and – his first film with Ginger Rogers – ‘Flying Down to Rio’, both made in the same year he was offered ‘On Your Toes’.

On the other hand Rodgers & Hart were already a well-established songwriting partnership, having just had massive critical acclaim for Paramount’s ‘Love Me Tonight’, a 1932 vehicle for Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald. This film includes an amazing scene where the whole of a Parisian street joins in with Chevalier singing ‘Isn’t it Romantic?’ – a memorable song which 70 years on has now found another life as a massive gay anthem! ‘Love Me Tonight’ also included another classic song, ‘Mimi’.

Fred Astaire was not seduced by this achievement, nor by Rodgers & Hart’s fashionable profile and he turned their next project down. He then went on to make some of the most successful musical comedies of all time over the next four years: ‘The Gay Divorcee’ (1934), ‘Roberta’ and ‘Top Hat’ (1935), ‘Follow the Fleet’ and ‘Swing Time’ (1936) and ‘Shall we Dance’ and ‘A Damsel in Distress’ (1936). There is no doubt that his judgement was impeccable.

Watching Paul Kerryson’s revival of ‘On Your Toes’ at the Royal Festival Hall, a whole three score years and ten after it was originally conceived, several things are obvious. Firstly, the structure of the musical was ahead of its time in the 1930s. The concept of enfolding two separate narrative ballets, particularly a jazz ballet in the style of the finale, ‘Slaughter on Tenth Avenue’, was much more a post-WW2 device. Despite this, the characterizations were distinctly of the period: one can almost cast the parts direct from Astaire’s standard entourage. Frankie Frayn was clearly written with Ginger Rogers in mind; Helen Broderick would have been perfectly cast as Peggy Porterfield, Eric Rhodes as Morrosine etc etc.

The third obvious thing was the undisguised pastiche of the Ballets Russes as the touring Russian ballet company. Sexual orientation apart, Sergei Alexandrovitch was obviously Sergei Diaghilev and Vera Baranova was clearly based on Tamara Geva (who played her on Broadway and also became Mrs George Balanchine!) with a bit of Alexandra Danilova thrown into the mix. Their mini-ballet, ‘La Princess Zenobia’, is a reworking of Scheherezade’s Zobeide in her own ballet!

The basic problem with ‘On Your Toes’ is that it is a very shallow story that fails to be rescued by some pretty average tunes. Lorenz Hart’s lyrics are often quite wonderful, encompassing tremendous wit and satire with deep poignancy, a linguistic outlet for his strongly repressed homosexuality. In ‘On Your Toes’ he even cocks a snook at the man who turned his work down (..’some rare male, like that Astaire male…’). But whereas every Rodgers & Hart book boasts 2 or 3 songs which live on today as classics, only ‘There’s a Small Hotel’ comes close to having that longevity from ‘On Your Toes’. Interestingly, it was the only original song to make it into the 1939 film.

It is a very average musical comedy that can only be transformed into something brilliant through the choreography and its performance. Paradoxically, the cast in the show I saw (Thursday matinee) were a very good musical comedy ensemble but, with exceptions, their dancing was not exceptional – some of it was barely adequate.

Of course, no-one should expect great classical technique in the ballet scenes of a musical comedy, or indeed the best American tap dancing. But in order to express the contrast which is at the heart of ‘On Your Toes’ (America vs the USSR and capitalism vs communism all channelled through tap and jazz vs classical ballet) the dance techniques need to demonstrate sufficient excellence to be credible. Perhaps, the cast were holding back enough in the matinee to be able to do it all again two hours later but I’m afraid to say that the general standard of dancing was not good. In particular, Adam Cooper’s very interesting revamped choreography for the big ‘On Your Toes’ number deserved much better delivery in the mixture of balletic and jazz/tap styles.

American tap is a very precise art, and it was danced in the 30s in a very precise way – watch Astaire, his feet hardly seem to move away from the floor and all the strength of the movement comes from below the knee. English tap is much springier with significant bounce in the knee movements. It was danced here as English with a vaguely distant American cousin! I am far too polite to say anything about the ensemble attempt at ballet dancing.

The show is over-long and it takes an age to get going. The opening sequence of setting the scene to the various characters through a quick cocktail of episodes is messy and unnecessarily complicated with the scenery bouncing up and down like an English tap dancer. This drag is extended by the fact that the opening two songs are the weakest in the show.

There is no doubting the fact that Adam Cooper carries a prodigious array of talents. His acting is good and he has a pleasing light baritone singing voice. His physical comedy routine as the unrehearsed fourth slave desperately trying to hang onto the steps in ‘La Princess Zenobia’ was very funny. Early in the show, immediately following the dismal opening, he secretly pulls out his tap shoes and goes through a brief routine and I thought “now this is great, I can’t wait for some more”. Only it never really got any better. There were some nice moments: such as when he dances a tango-based duet with Kathryn Evans (Peggy) in ‘The Heart is Quicker Than the Eye’ and his first pas de deux with Sarah Wildor in ‘Slaughter on Tenth Avenue’. However, I was immensely disappointed with the dancing in the rest of this mini-jazz ballet.

The revelation for me was an excellent musical comedy performance by Sarah Wildor. Her impersonation of the spoilt, man-crazy ballerina (Baranova) was deliciously over the top and full of some perfectly timed comic moments. In the ballet within the musical she still manages to achieve a passable impersonation of a Principal Ballerina although her classical technique is becoming a little frayed around the edges.

It is, however, always a thrill to watch Irek Mukhamedov (playing her unfaithful balletic and romantic partner) and he is able to demonstrate perfect technique in some cameo moments, including one memorable sequence of spinning turns. I was also impressed by Anna-Jane Casey (as Frankie Frayn), looking not unlike Ginger Rogers and with a simply beautiful singing voice. Kathryn Evans (as Peggy Porterfield) had the nearest moment to a showstopper in her wonderfully comic interpretation of ‘You took advantage of me’ – which was added to the songbook for the 1954 revival, perhaps another sign of a perceived weakness in its overall tunefulness.

I am sorry to say that the final and most startlingly obvious thing about ‘On Your Toes’ is that Fred Astaire was absolutely right to turn it down. By 1933, he was 34 years old and needed to make the transition from stage to screen. If he had accepted Rodgers & Hart’s pitch in that Beverley Hills Hotel and made Junior Dolan his first major screen appearance and the film had flopped (as it did in 1939), it could have pushed him into premature retirement. Just think of how much genius we would all have missed!