Great dance theatre doesn’t come about by accident. It’s born of constant experiment, reassessment and refinement. Some Like It Hip Hop was written, choreographed and directed by Kate Prince as a follow-up to her phenomenally successful Into the Hoods, which opened in the West End in 2008. The new show is Prince’s take on Billy Wilder’s 1959 film comedy Some Like It Hot, and tells the story of Jo-Jo (Lizzie Gough) and Kerri (Teneisha Bonner), who drag up as men to get work in a dystopian city in which books are banned and women permitted only the most menial of jobs.

When the piece opened for a short season last October, its strengths were immediately apparent. Prince’s choreography scintillated, DJ Walde and Josh Cohen’s score was full of wit and snap, and a strong cast led by Gough, Bonner and Tommy Franzén carried audiences with them from curtain-up. But there were structural flaws. The exposition was unclear, the plotting over-elaborate and the characterisation at times unsubtle. After a limited season it was back to the drawing board.

Eleven months later Prince has got it dead right. The show works at every level, as satire, parable and romcom, and from the first appearance of Ross Green’s wry narrator unfolds with luxurious, rapid-fire precision. Gough, with her hornrims and blonde bangs, projects an eager, goofball charm, and Bonner, who can lay serious claim to the title of hip-hop dance’s hottest female star, is all slinky ripple. Once inside the city and dressed as men – hilariously unlikely men, it has to be said – the pair acquire a pseudo-masculine swagger that ruthlessly sends up the unreconstructed crotch-scratching, cigar-chomping machismo they encounter.

In numbers such as It’s a Man’s World and The Rules of Seduction it becomes clear that part of Prince’s intention is to use humour to send up some of the negative attitudes still prevalent in the hip-hop world. As she says, she’s “strongly against misogynistic lyrics, homophobia, violence and materialism”. So the pleasures of book-learning are extolled, the oppressive get their comeuppance and sexism and arrogance get a firm boot in the seat of the pants. A comically ambiguous scene in which Natasha Gooden’s Oprah flirtatiously pursues Kerri in her male guise reminds us of the debt owed by Wilder’s film to Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

What sets Prince apart from other hip-hop choreographers is the genius with which she uses the idiom to define character. So while Duwane Taylor’s tyrannical Governor krumps with quicksilver speed while rooted to the spot, a study in internal contradiction, Franzén’s sweet-natured Simeon is in constant, irrepressible motion. Technically this is a very strong cast indeed – Robert Anker’s barrel-rolling flips had the audience gasping in disbelief, and Shaun Smith’s irrepressible Sudsy seemed to be made of rubber – but in the end it’s Franzén’s wit and timing that carry the day. He has the insouciance and the throwaway musicality of a latterday Astaire and a self-deprecating warmth that carries the audience with him every step of the way.
LONDONDANCE.COM

By Graham Watts

Reviewed: 25 September

It’s hard to imagine a shape or movement of the human body that did not cycle at top speed through the well-toned physiques of the ultra-enthusiastic cast of Zoonation’s Some Like It Hip Hop at Tuesday night’s performance. The show is now in revival at the Peacock Theatre after a successful run last year. On one level it’s a rather puzzling creation; a sort of amalgamation of a musical fable and a contemporary version of a dance revue, but it basically boils down to an excuse for a bunch of prodigiously talented young dancers to show off their breakin’, b-boyin’, street, pop music video, acrobatic ambitions. And this they do with enough energy to power a small city for at least a week.

Some Like It Hip Hop is definitely a dance extravaganza first and a book musical second. Although many of the songs are real toe-tappers, they sound suspiciously similar to the pop chart toppers of recent years, and the story, well, I kept getting confused. The story purports to be a cross between Some Like It Hot, the Marilyn Monroe classic directed by Billy Wilder, and Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, but despite some undercover cross dressing, thematically I didn’t see all that much of either. It seems that the governor of a kind of post-industrial fairy tale city got grumpy one day and in a move of seriously totalitarian megalomania extinguished the sun, burned all the books and banished all the women in his jurisdiction to either exile or humiliating subservience to the men folk.

The evil consequences of this were narrated by an everyman figure (Ross Green), and expressed through angrily executed, snappy breakdance moves and a sort of swiftly angular sign language reminiscent of voguing. But underdogs abound in this cartoon dystopia and we are soon introduced to a gaggle of plucky protagonists who both defy and perpetuate stereotypes as they boldly protest the regime and dance their way into getting kicked out of the city, dance their way back in again, and then do it again. It seems that to like books and be smart you must wear a cardigan and thick-rimmed glasses, and as a girl you might be plenty clever and gutsy but still go all dumb and gooey when a good looking fella comes along. Serious social commentary this is not.

But in an interview in the programme, Zoonation leader and creator of Some Like It Hip Hop, Kate Prince says that entertaining her audience is her number one priority, and this she surely did with the help of her exuberant proteges. The individual and group numbers were so dense with lightning fast movement that the dancers would have seemed a blur had they not been nailing right on the head and with exacting precision, every shape and tricky combination. The whole group is remarkable for this, but Tommy Franzen of So You Think You Can Dance fame, is such a magnetic performer that he nearly stole the show right out from underneath the rest of the crew. Even in the big group numbers he shone as though he was veritably lit up from within, making it almost impossible to watch anyone else. I don’t know what he has for breakfast but we should all be on it.

There seemed no other option but to stand up during the protracted and bubbly curtain call, and the encores just kept coming as audience members danced out into the aisles and the cast all aptly sang the phrase “Don’t let me hear you say you can’t dance!” on joyful repeat. In fact not dancing was practically impossible, so infectious was their energy. I found myself grinning and bouncing, the ten-year-old friend I was with was gleefully drumming the air with invisible drumsticks, and both of us danced down the aisle and out into the street. In short, don’t go to Some Like It Hip Hop for the story or a critique of social injustice; you’ll be disappointed. But the feel-good factor and the super fly dancing, are well worth the price of admission.

Some Like it Hip Hop is a new cross-dressed “dansical” from ZooNation (the company behind Into the Hoods), and a preview run in the Midlands meant that this terrific musical comedy hit the West End in fine shape.

Despite the catchy title, Some Like it Hip Hop is not a danced version of the 1959 movie, although Billy Wilder’s central theme – changing sex to find work – is maintained. Kate Prince’s story is set in a brutish, bookless men-only world (an earnest nod here to the misogyny found in hip hop and rap music) so that our two heroines (Teneisha Bonner and Lizzie Gough) must don suits, moustaches and blokey mannerisms before anyone will take them seriously.

If the Blood Brothers-style running commentary (delivered by Tachia Newall) lacks the textual sophistication of Rennie Harris’s Rome and Jewels, this is more than made up for by superb musical direction. DJ Walde and Josh Cohen’s smooth mix of tape and live voice includes several show-stopping original songs, delivered with soul by Elliotte Williams-N’Dure and Sheree Dubois.

Ben Stone’s modular set makes for seamless transformations, while Johanna Town’s virtuoso lighting guides us around the multi-level stage so that not a trick is missed. The penultimate number, Wilson Atie’s Light it Up, earned the usual oohs and aahs for the choreographic firework display, with Tommy Franzen looking like Jell-O on springs.

 A nerdy Clark Kent: Tommy Franzén in Some Like it Hip Hop

Kate Prince – lyricist, librettist, choreographer, artistic director of ZooNation and hip hop ambassador to the West End – clearly has a lot on her mind.

Intolerance, library closures and the need for street culture to embrace more formal education are only some of the issues bubbling under this ungainly parable about an embittered ruler (Duwane Taylor) who steals the sun and turns his city into a woman-oppressing fortress where love and books are banned.

Such a behemoth should be impossible to animate but with the help of an always serviceable and occasionally inspiring R&B score the cast brings it vibrantly to life. Tommy Franzén is irrepressible as a nerdy, book-smuggling Clark Kent who doesn’t have to ditch the specs to be a superman. He provides a dazzling series of caterpillars, flips, flairs and cossack kicks to demonstrate, as the accompanying song claims, his “175 IQ”.

At the other end of the happy spectrum, Taylor’s fierce, angry locking represents a body whose own neurons are trying to Taser it into submission.

And Teneisha Bonner, as one of two women who disguise themselves as men to infiltrate the city, proves to be his mushy but choreographically brilliant redemption, by throwing his own moves back at him, softened, feminised and thus stronger. Then it all ends in a party. Despite the shaky structure, Some Like it Hip Hop looks sure to be a massive hit.

LONDONDANCE.COM

by Graham Watts

The world of entertainment is paved with ‘second album syndrome’ or the curse of a second project failure; whether it is the follow-up music album, a second novel or the second series of a hit TV show, repeating one’s own debut success is the hardest act to follow.   And this was the task for Kate Prince and her ZooNation Dance Company, whose first full-length work, Into the Hoods, was a runaway success over several seasons in many locations from separate stints at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe to two long runs in the West End.

Any concerns about the slow start are long forgotten by the time of a rousing gospel-style finale, which follows on from a last, brief dance cameo in the spotlight from the entire cast, including the non-dance crew.   At the end, everyone is lined up at the front of the stage and with little need of encouragement it has the entire audience on its feet for an encore.   Just as with Into The Hoods, Prince and her team know how to send an audience home happy and in doing so she has done more than enough to wipe out any ‘second album syndrome’ .

THE GUARDIAN

By Luke Jennings

‘Destined to be a smash-hit’: Kate Prince’s Some Like It Hip Hop. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

When Into the Hoods opened at the Novello theatre in 2008, it was the West End’s first hip-hop show and it would mark the evolution of British hip-hop from a street form into a fully realised theatrical language. The piece was choreographed and directed by Kate Prince, and last Tuesday she launched her new show, Some Like It Hip Hop. Like its predecessor it unites a smart and appealing storyline with truly fabulous dancing. The line-up is led by Tommy Franzén and Lizzie Gough from BBC1’s So You Think You Can Dance, and strength in depth is provided by Teneisha Bonner, Duwane Taylor and other luminaries of the UK hip-hop scene.

The story tells of a city whose governor (Taylor), unbalanced by the loss of his wife, has locked the community into a repressive regime where books are banned, women confined to menial tasks and offenders banished to the chill desolation outside the city. The first to suffer this fate is the free-spirited Sudsy, danced by Shaun Smith, and he’s swiftly followed by Kerri (Bonner) and Jo-Jo (Gough). The only way back into the city is via one of the work details recruited from the ranks of the rejects, but as only men are required, Kerri and Jo-Jo have to drag up in wigs, moustaches and suits.

Cue much confusion and romantic cross-purpose. Jo-Jo falls for Simeon (Franzén), who is also recruited for the work party but cannot see beyond her male get-up, and Kerri finds herself simultaneously favoured as an up-and-coming young chap by the governor and lustily pursued by Oprah (Natasha Gooden), his long-lost daughter. Simeon, meanwhile, is persuaded into falling for Jo-Jo in the launderette, where she can safely be her female self, and both she and Kerri are unmasked as women in a classic reveal, unleashing first chaos and then a suitably redemptive conclusion.

Dance-wise, there’s not a weak moment. Frantzén is supremely good, combining an effortless technique with highly sophisticated musical phrasing. In his hands, DJ Walde’s rapid-fire score becomes infinitely pliant: something to have fun with and bend to his own idiosyncratic ends. In owlish specs and nerdy sweater, Franzén is an unlikely romantic lead but he works the look with great wit, just as Gough does with her hornrims and Sandra Dee bangs.

Taylor, meanwhile, is a magisterial governor, expressing his fractured psyche though quiveringly tense locking and popping routines. But perhaps the most finely shaded performance is Smith’s. As the hapless, sweet-natured Sudsy he combines cutting-edge moves with a doleful anxiety to please which recalls Norman Wisdom and the greats of music-hall clowning.

The piece looks good. Ben Stones’s steampunk designs give a grim, dystopian feel, and Prince’s choreography hits the mark every time. Not only as display but as a vehicle for emotion. There’s a duet for Bonner and Gooden which is just sensual enough to give their relationship an ambiguous edge, and in a later trio for Smith, Gough and Bonner, Prince’s filmic montage of angled limbs and liquid upper-body moves is perfectly expressive of their individual dilemmas.

Inevitably there are flaws. The piece opens with an exposition by a narrator which is rendered near inaudible by poor amplification. The first half seems at once over-plotted and over-simplistic: there are, for example, no unsympathetic female characters, and the overbearing masculine behaviour could be much more subtly drawn. There are structural problems raised by the Oprah subplot, which is central to the resolution but encountered comparatively late in the piece, and in consequence has a tacked-on feel.

And given the show’s references to Billy Wilder’s 1959 film Some Like It Hot, which itself references Shakespearean comedy, we are led to expect a more comprehensive romantic pairing-off than is delivered. Jo-Jo and Simeon are an established item some time before the end, and Kerri, in an echo of Twelfth Night‘s Viola and Duke Orsino, appears destined for the governor, although this is not especially clearly signalled. Oprah, Sudsy and the others, meanwhile, are left out on a limb, love-wise.

But these are early days. Into the Hoods continued to evolve long after its 2006 debut in this theatre, and Some Like It Hip Hop is surely destined for the same smash-hit status.