by Rachel Nurse

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20th December 2017, Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama

Footloose, footloose, no other performance can be as good as footloose! Ren McCormack leaves the city life when he is forced to move in with his motherÔÇÖs family. His love of dancing helps him through his dark days and is shocked to find out that in the town of Bomont- dancing is banned! The conflict between dance and town laws causes feuds, but in the end ÔÇ£everybody cuts loose.ÔÇØ

The Kinetic Theatre Arts aims to give performers professional skills aged 6-16 and Footloose is the perfect musical for all ages. The performance was full of creativity, talent and was wonderfully set out. The director Kris Crowley says that ÔÇ£the characters are a healthy mix of comedic, adorable and a splash of sass for good measure.ÔÇØ She also emphasises with the character Ren, as I feel a lot of people who see the performance do, as he just wants to dance freely and figure out everything else after. In the face of authority, he stands up for what he believes in and I do love that about his character.

My favourite of the cast was Kit Sweet, who played Reverend Shaw. The character development and emotion he put into his performance was professional, no surprise that Footloose is his seventh show with Kinetic. Reverend Shaw has an internal conflict with his self-proclaimed laws and his relationship with his daughter Ariel. Jane Wellbeloved, who plays Ariel, is a talented student who explored the character of Ariel with ease. Ariel has many layers and Ren, Jack Meek, the Chicago town boy is the one to make her open up about her worries and helps the town with their struggling grief.

I had never seen the production of Footloose or the film, and the show was one I had wanted to see for a while, I wondered if the show should be must-see. Well, there definitely should be a fuss and dance (ayyy) about the Kinetic presentation of Footloose the musical as the band, the cast and production did an outstanding job of bringing the world of the theatre to life. Footloose is one for the musical bucket list, I recommend seeing the production greatly. The audience couldnÔÇÖt stop singing and dancing when they left the theatre and they kicked off their Sunday shoes (on a Wednesday) to relive the magic of Footloose the musical. I enjoyed the show and would love to see Footloose again and any performance by the Kinetic Theatre Arts.