Jazz Men, which had a very brief season at the Athenaeum Theatre, was full of verve and passion but ultimately disappointed due to some poor choreography unevenly executed by an ensemble of dancers of different skill levels.
Promoted as a dynamic dance revue, the show consisted of a number of vignettes and set pieces of choreography involving either the whole ensemble of 13 performers or smaller subgroups of the 13; occasionally soloists took the spotlight.
Each piece was set to taped music from a range of different genres such as swing, eighties rock and disco, to name just three. The whole was strung together by the evening’s emcee, vocalist Bek Chapman, who performed several songs solo or in a duet.
Throughout the evening there was no discernible main theme tying the vignettes together, notwithstanding the title of Jazz Men.
This was unfortunate as the show cried out for a stronger structure; as it was, it felt like a random scattering of half-shaped thoughts and ideas for entertainment.
The show felt very much like a rough first draft that was being given a trial run in front of an audience.
And, even though it was enthusiastically received by a very user-friendly audience, there is still some way to go to get several shortcomings ironed out.
These shortcomings showed in a number of different ways: dancers did spot lit solos but wandered out of the spot; the choreography fell into cliched moves; dancers were out of synch with either the music or fellow dancers or both. Still, there were some wonderful show-stopping moments during the evening when everything came together and great dancers enthralled the audience with sensuous moves set to the pulsating beats of musical hits.
Overall then something of a mixed bag. The revue needs much further work, in both writing and rehearsal, for it to come together and realise its full potential.
Jazz Men will next be presented at the Geelong Performing Arts Centre in early March.

• Review by Peter Murphy