Riverpants

To any of you considering forking out your hard-earned cash to actually pay for a ticket to see the "cultural" extravaganza that is Riverdance, my advice is DON'T.

Oh my God. I sat through 2 hours of the most excrutiating torture I have ever endured last night. It was shockingly bad. The only good things about the whole experience were (a) the tickets were free and (b) we had really good seats, right in front of the stage. This last was a mixed blessing though. Not only could I see them, they could see me.

Christ - I was bored out of my gourd for most of it and then started to get really uncomfortable whenever the performers got too close to the edge of the stage (which was often), because they could see how unimpressed I was. I tried to smile encouragingly whenever my eyes met with theirs, but all I could muster was some sort of deranged rictus.

To be honest, I'm not sure which I liked least: the leading man with all the charisma of a turnip (say what you like about Michael Flately, at least he could inflame the passions, even if it was just the passion of hatred!)

Could it have been the thick-ankled girls, who danced about with their haon-dó-trís, and far more hip waggling than any of my Irish dancing teachers would ever have permitted. That sort of carry on would have been enough to have you sent home from the feis in disgrace! And if they're going to sex-up Irish dancing with a bit of pelvic gyration, why couldn't they allow the hatchet-faced wimmin to smile a bit. The make-up woman could have gone a little easier on the blusher too...

Or maybe it was the "cultural diversity", represented by a flamenco dancer, some Russian dancer combo thingie and some not-white folks - who were there to illustrate the hardship faced by Irish immigrants in America around the time of the Famine and how, despite their different dancing styles and the innate racism displayed by the Irish, they all became good friends.

Or could it have been the whooping and hollering audience of yokels and tourists, who actually believe that Riverdance is the greatest thing to come out of Ireland since Johnny Logan - and let's face it, they're on something of a par...

Not wanting to be a complete nay-sayer, I would like to mention that the "dance-off" was fantastic good fun and the woman who played the violin was excellent. Almost, though not entirely, worth sitting through the rest of the dross. Get it on DVD and do a scene selection - better yet, borrow the DVD from one of your friends. Though if my friends had bought the DVD, I would have to re-evaluate the friendship. People with that level of poor taste, in my house?

Riverdance? RiverPANTS, I say.