Boogie Nights

Boogie Nights on National Tour

Note: The following review dates from the play’s run at the West End’s Savoy Theatre in October 1998.

The first thing you need to know about Boogie Nights is that it has nothing to do with the recent Hollywood film of the same name. Rather than a romp through the 70s California porn industry, the stage show is a semi-autobiographical romp through star Shane Richie s 70s teendom of “boogie, booze and birds”. The second thing you need to know about Boogie Nights is that, as awful as that sounds, it s surprisingly entertaining.

Richie and Jon Conway, who directed and co-wrote the musical, have borrowed shamelessly from that standard-bearer of 70s musicals, Saturday Night Fever, which has been flaring it up at the Palladium since April. Where Fever has the Odyssey 2000 nightclub, Boogie Nights has the Boogie Nights club as its local; where Fever has the classic Bee Gees soundtrack, Boogie Nights has a string of other disco hits, including generous helpings of Gloria Gaynor; where Fever has a dance contest, Boogie Nights has a, um… dance contest. And where Fever has John Travolta-inspired Adam Garcia, Boogie Nights has Richie as Roddy O Neill, the boy who wants to sing his way out of the slums.

Love him or loathe him (and most of the women in the audience fell firmly into the first camp), Richie certainly knows how to work a crowd, all cheeky grins and mischievous asides. And he can belt out a tune, especially those where hip-grinding and pelvis-thrusting are required.

Some of his co-stars are more melodically challenged. While Sharon Benson looks and sounds the part of a Donna Summer decoy, Lisa Maxwell as Roddy s long-suffering girlfriend Debs delivers off-key. Male co-stars get shorter shrift in the singing department, with most of the plum songs going to Richie, but they make their presence felt in the humour stakes – in particular, Steven Serlin as the squeaky-voiced, sex-starved geek Terry. Yep, as with Saturday Night Fever, there s one of those too.

For all its Feverish overtones, however, Boogie Nights is a very different show. And not just for its London setting and anglicised cultural references or even its little plot twist-in-the-tail. The most important difference is that Boogie Nights revels in its kitschness. A hilarious Village People spoof is a prime example of this welcome revelry. No one takes themselves too seriously – least of all Shane Richie. Thank goodness.

And did I mention that everyone ends up dancing in the aisles? Of course they do.

Terri Paddock