BWW Reviews: NAPOLETANGO, London Coliseum, August 4 2011

In Naples, one has to go with the flow, whether walking on the pavement ("Watch that scooter!"), eating sensibly ("More pasta? Oh - just a little then") or wondering about the representation of women in a city ("The Madonna and Sophia Loren always look good - but in every bar?"). And so it is with Napoletango (at The London Coliseum until Saturday August 6, then on tour). 

Following the lives of the Incoronato Family, a troupe of performers desperately keen to tango, but curiously reluctant to get on with the actual dancing, as they come together as a motley crew of men and women of varying shapes and sizes, held together by the fierce matriarch Concetta. The show follows the troupe's commune-like lives, as we look in on domestic and theatrical scenes set to pulsing Latin music. We see the troupe half-dancing, half-miming through their arrival at a theatre, watch them construct and make good use of a temporary dormitory and fly into a variety of arguments and reconciliations - all the while confessing love for The Tango. Unexpectedly, there's a curious intermezzo which answers the question nobody is asking - "What would the Italian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest look like if Katy Perry won the nomination?" before, just as a narrative is emerging through the fog of never quite simultaneous surtitles, it's time for a little audience participation Strictly Come Dancing it in the aisles and then the curtain comes down.

If you prefer your representations of the city painted by the cool, hard eye of Edouard Manet, Napoletango is unlikely to be your cup of cappuccino; if you prefer your representations of the city in the style of Jack the Dripper (action painter, Jackson Pollock) you'll be ordering a grappa to chase that cappuccino in the interval. Just don't expect too much in the way of Tango, which is a pity really, as "the vertical expression of horizontal desire" has a subtlety that would provide a welcome contrast in a show in which everything hurtles along at breakneck speed until it suddenly stops.