'Come Dancing - The Concert' - Theatre Royal Stratford East

On Friday evening I went to Stratford to see a concert version of Ray Davies' musical, 'Come Dancing'. I saw the musical a few times on its run at Stratford in 2008 and loved the story and the music. The concert version is part of the Open Stage 2012 season that includes other concert versions of musicals, including 'The Harder They Come' at the end of June.

The stage was set with microphone stands across the front and a couple of risers for the cast to sit at tables when not singing. There was some dialogue to keep the story going inbetween songs but the star of the show was really the songs, some beautiful and some rousing.

I was pleased when the actors started filing the stage to see them coming on in their late '50s costumes and even happier to recognise some of the faces reprising their roles in the original production. That was a bit of a surprise and very welcome.

'Come Dancing' is a tale of change in the late '50s loosely based on Ray's childhood but with lots of invented family details. The local Palais dancehall was the focus of the community and everyone went dancing on a Saturday night. Ray's older sisters and parents go there regularly and that's where most of the action takes place. We're introduced to older sisters Rose and Brenda on the evening of their younger sister Julie's first evening at the Palais. We learn that Julie was disabled by polio, has difficulty dancing and is nervous. As the story progresses we learn more about the family and the community, dead-end jobs and a need to escape, of violence and love. We meet Tosher, the local Borstal boy, Frankie the owner of the Palais and part of the old world of the big bands and Hamilton, recently arrived from Kingston Jamaica.

It's a lovely story with a wistful ending when we learn what happened to the characters over the succeeding 30 years. It's the songs that make it work and they're all original Ray Davies compositions with the addition of 'Tired Of Waiting' and 'You Really Got Me'. In the original production Ray opened the show by strolling on singing 'Tired Of Waiting' but in this version Tosher sings it to Julie on a bomb-site outside the Palais, he's tired of waiting for Julie. 'You Really Got Me' is a new addition and used as Tosher's bands' audition to play at the Palais (it got a rousing cheer).

The songs written for the musical deserve to be recorded - maybe one day. I was mulling them over in my mind on the train home and decided that Julie's songs are personal, written at an individual level looking to the future and yearning for change. The lads songs are more aggressive and about social change and revolution, that things will have to change and they will. From personal to social. I'm not sure I can imaging Ray singing Julie's songs but it's a sign of his skills that he can write convincingly and tenderly for a teenage girl discovering love and freedom for the first time, knowing there's more to the world than her neighbourhood but not knowing how to reach out for it.

I remembered the ending of the play and was ready for it but still got moist eyed when Julie comes on after everyone else has told us what happened to them over the years. Julie went dancing.