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As you can imagine having bumped into Jay before the show I was even more excited about KD. I hadn't been to the theatre before but it was very comfortable with great views. I was at the front of the Circle. Mainly middle aged female audience but a few kids and some OHs. Looked full enough and a great atmosphere. Very positive audience. I have to say though that I don't think everyone realised that they were not going to see the Jaliona dances exactly as they were on SCD. Anyone going needs to know that they are not seeing SCD or the tour performances. The hair, the costumes are not the same and not as glamorous as on the SCD shows. There are live singers and a couple of live musicians. The show is a mixture of dance- groups, couples- straight singing numbers, a bit of drumming, plus a clapping routine. There is no narrative and not much obvious order or sequence to dances. Jay and Aliona do 2 dances in each half. They dance on their own and only interact with the others at the very end. They don't do their jive when the other dancers do theirs for example. Robin looks very trim and dances very well and very enthusiastically.

So to Jay and Aliona. They did the Paso and Charleston in the first half and then the salsa and jive.Their 4 routines were very similar to the dances they did on SCD but to different music, apart from the salsa which they did to a different arrangement of Cuba. There were no backing dancers and no props/sets. Just the 2 of them on stage. Embarrassingly I didn't know the titles of any of them! I think that the reason they had to change the songs was probably to do with the cost of the licences as much as a anything else. They did the Paso to what I think was a U2 song (Hello, hello?)and the jive to a song with the words 'let your backbone slip'. No idea what the charleston song was. The costumes were very simple. Aliona was in a long blueish dress, then a peachy coloured short one, then a short silvery (I think) one and finally she wore what I thought might have been the nude gold dress from the showdance. It looked very similar. Jay wore a purple/black trousers and shirt and waistcoat for the Paso, black trousers and short sleeved shirt for the charleston, black trousers, pale shirt with black short sleeved shirt over for the salsa and a white shirt with braces and black trousers for the jive. Aliona had her hair in a long pony tale. Jay wore his hair slicked down but not as slicked down as on the AT.

I really enjoyed the Paso. It was great to see the whole dance unedited. There is a bit in the Paso which I always thought looked a bit awkward as we only saw it from the waist up. Seeing it full length it wasn't awkward at all. When Jay grabbed Aliona at the end it was really quite thrilling. It was also great to see the charleston with out the alternative ending. I wasn't thrilled about the music though. There was a bit of a whoopsie on the salsa at the end but the audience were very kind and Jay was very apologetic. The jive was really good - fast and confident- and lovely to see with no daft wig, flapping trousers or gaping socks. Jay looked a bit lost at the end of the show but I think they probably had not rehearsed that bit very much. Jay looked a bit closer to how he looked in the cha,cha, cha than at the end of SCD and they obviously have not danced together as much recently but it was really great to see them together again.

Poor Jay, I hope he'll catch up for the next shows and not be disapointed in himself and I also hope the positive publicity from MD serves him as a promotion for Big.
Ah, maybe I should treat myself to a Wimbledon ticket