Richard Harris’ script, which won The London Standard's Best Comedy award in 1986, is the upbeat saga of a church hall dance class, where all the participants get a chance to bare their souls and strut their stuff.

The teacher, Mavis, is an over-the-hill chorus girl whose personal life is a mess--- but she really loves to teach. She inspires her amateurs, and they reward her with school spirit and a touching concern for each other's welfare. The students are an assortment of ordinary types, all but one of them women, who set themselves to learn show dancing just for the fun of it.

There's Andy, a professional's wife who devotes herself to good causes but is -- for reasons we learn about late in the play--- repressed and on awkward terms with her body. Dorothy, has the ability to be a good dancer -- if only she could get in sync. Lynne, is a nurse who sees dancing as a way to leave stress and responsibility behind. Rose, a middle-class black woman, has a handsome husband and children who are rooting for her to perfect her moves. Both Maxine, a down-to-earth veteran of the garment business, and Rose's chum Silvia, who has five kids and an officially unemployed blue collar husband who does odd jobs for people who pay him under the table, are also a bit more buxom than is customary for dancers. Vera, though, is in excellent shape - her rich husband insists on it, even as he neglects her in favour of her teenage daughter.

The odd man out in the class is Geoffrey! Mrs. Fraser pounds out piano accompaniment for the practice routines, and acts as both support and hindrance to Mavis, to whom she is a sort of substitute mother. All this, plus enough interaction and "issues" to fill a couple of months worth of soap opera, comes out because the students not only confide in each other, but each of them also has a solo moment in the spotlight to confide in the audience, too.



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