If the publicity is to be believed, Adam Garcia’s Emerald Storm claims it’s: “fusing the fire of Irish dance with the grit of urban tap, this high octane production explodes with rhythm, passion and pure spectacle, elevated by soaring live vocals woven throughout.”
What it delivers in reality is an energetic but repetitive sequence of routines to some Irish classic tunes and pop and rock bangers performed by some talented dancers.
A loose narrative that pits the two dance styles against one another, then ultimately fuses them is not entirely clear. Billed as “spectacular” the basic set, vaguely looks like a bar with a few benches, is cheap and visually uninspiring. The costumes look as if the dancers have stepped out of the rehearsal room straight on to the stage. The entire design budget appears to have been spent on a large illuminated EMERALD STORM sign. The largest gripe with the whole production is that the majority of the seating is flat and unraised, resulting in a whole swathe of the audience unable to see the dancers below the knee, something one would think was essential in a dance show.
The dance is intertwined with vocal performances from Britain’s Got Talent alumni Tom Ball. 28 year old Ball, a former teacher, gives off avuncular middle aged, middle-England man energy and while his voice is nicely showcased in some of the bigger numbers such as the eternally popular Seven Years, it is less successful in a jazzy version of Beyonce’s Halo and particularly in received pronunciation versions of Irish classics The Fields of Athenry and Whisky in the Jar – these songs, so intrinsic to Irish identity, delivered in an English accent, just feel wrong. More successful are the female guitar/fiddle duo who as well as appearing throughout the evening, warm up the crowd for half an hour before the show. The pair are a highlight, as is tap star Leslie Bowman who in an acknowledgement of the crowd’s inability to see his feet, dances part of one of his routines on top of a bench. His skills are stunning and enliven the production as it wanes from too much of the same thing in the Irish inspired pieces. The only real difference in the Irish dances are the songs they are danced to. The choreographic content is just too similar, and provides little originality.
For anyone hoping to see Adam Garcia, whose name is front and centre of all of the advertising, he is merely the producer/ choreographer here. Those lured by his name will be sorely disappointed.
Ultimately, this is an entertaining enough piece of fluff, but it doesn’t deliver the entertainment required to sustain an audience’s interest over a two hour show.