IS it possible for a musical to have too many songs?
Save The Last Dance For Me, currently showing at Royal & Derngate, squeezes 37 rock ‘n’ roll classics from the 1950s into a two-hour show.
The musical features the story of a 17-year-old who goes on holiday to Lowestoft and falls in love with a black American soldier.
Directors Bill Kenwright and Keith Strachan obviously seem to have decided to focus their energy on making sure they get the music right before thinking about the paper thin plot.
Like any good film or book, the audience of a musical needs to become emotionally involved in what is happening in the story to care about the lead characters.
Heavily signposted links to the start of a new song can be made more acceptable if they are announced with some tongue-in-cheek humour.
However, Save the Last Dance For Me has so many different songs the cast members barely have time to clear the set before they are launching into the next 50s track.
For this reason, the show ends up becoming a bland mish-mash of rock ‘n’ roll songs wrapped around a clichéd holiday romance.
Despite its failings, the show does feature a number of outstanding individual performances with AJ Dean infusing the character of Milton with an entertaining mix of arrogance and humour.
Hannah Frederick also provides some laughs with her depiction of Jennifer, the more “worldly-wise” older sister from Luton.
Other highlights included an a capella version of Hushabye which featured some terrific harmonising of all the voices in the cast.
But, possibly due to the number of songs, there wasn’t enough moments during the musical where the stage was fizzing with the energy of a moment that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
If Save The Last Dance For Me was a meal it would be scrambled egg on toast, it fills the stomach but bland and instantly forgettable.
The show is at Royal & Derngate until Saturday. To book go to www.royalandderngate.co.uk