No American showbiz choreographer had a more distinctive signature than Bob Fosse. The tip-tilted bowler hat held between thumb and forefinger, the jutting buttocks, the hand raised high: all these are much in evidence in this rousing anthology of his work ranging from Kiss me Kate and The Pajama Game to the movie All That Jazz.
For me, the best of Fosse often lies in the vintage setpieces from book musicals, where his irony and wit match that of the score. Here, for instance, we get two classics from Sweet Charity. In Big Spender the lewd hip movements of the taxi-dancers who drape their legs over the railing as if they were folding Dali clocks evoke a world of sleazy sex. Rich Man's Frug, in which smooth men dance with cigarettes poised in parodic Coward style, also summons up a kind of yuppie ecstasy.
Obviously in a show that includes so much you sense Fosse's limitations as well as his brilliance. He did not come from the world of classical ballet and his occasional nods in that direction reveal his fundamental lack of lyricism. He could also occasionally be pretentious. But his best work has an extraordinary mix of muscularity, sexiness and energy.
The climax to the evening, from his exuberant 1978 show Dancin', is a version of Benny Goodman's Sing, Sing, Sing in which the movements match those of the instruments: one particular dancer, Emma Tunmore, doesn't so much accompany the trumpet solo as make music visible with her mane-tossing head movements, her pelvic gyrations and her breathtaking floor-slide. In fact, one great virtue of the show, directed by Richard Maltby Jr and Ann Reinking and co-choreographed by Reinking and Chet Walker, is that the dancers emerge as individuals. They are, I note, predominantly British, which says a lot for the way we can now match American showbusiness expertise.
In most musicals you sit patiently waiting for the few patches of choreographed excitement. Here you get the ecstasy without the boredom.
Until June 17. Box office: 0171-839 5972. This review appeared in some editions of yesterday's paper
