Flash Mob ? Edinburgh festival review

Assembly HallBritain has apparently become a nation of dancers, or at least a nation addicted to TV dance shows. The finale of this short, entertaining production sees the entire audience getting to their feet in response to instructions from the stage, uniting in a mass hand-jiving, hips-sashaying dance.The selling point of Flash Mob is that its performers have been culled from TV shows, with headliner Tommy Franzen, a finalist from BBC1's So You Think You Can Dance. What makes Franzen a star, however, has little to do with his screen celebrity: it's the skill and musicality of his dancing.His style is a mix of choppy footwork, one-arm balances and slippery dives, all delivered with a manner that's part hip-hop homeboy, part music hall comic. On top of this, Franzen can layer elements of contemporary dance, jive and ballet, and phrase it all with such rhythmic acuteness that every move has a three-dimensional expressiveness.Franzen alone is worth the price of a ticket ? but unfortunately everyone else on stage ranks in very sharply descending order of appeal. My favourites are Irish dance duo Brosena, particularly their belter of an opener, which features a hip-hop version of Beethoven's Fifth driving their feet to an intensity of swivelling, criss-crossing speeds.A-Team deliver some tight and tough street routines, fronted by tiny schoolgirl Suki, whose speciality is balancing on one leg and jabbing the other high in the air, an angelic kung fu master in trainers.Mike Viry and Yunaisy Farray look out of place, however, their strenuous sultriness imported from late-night Cuban cabaret; while contemporary dance couple Alleviate need to find better choreography than their literal-minded duets of sex and heartbreak.Still, the bouncy, aspirational style of the show is hard to resist. The evening I saw it, one small child refused to leave her spot as the theatre emptied, still rapturously going through the closing flashmob dance.Rating: 3/5Edinburgh festival 2012DanceFestivalsBBCReality TVHip-hopJudith Mackrellguardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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