Lord of the Dance: Theatre Review

Lord of the Dance is a famous dance show that’s been performed across the world. It’s an Irish dance show, with a nice soundtrack and a nice (but slightly confusing) story. Here’s my Lord of the Dance theatre review.

Overview of Lord of the Dance

Lord of the Dance is an Irish dance show. It was created by Michael Flatley, who played the character of ‘Lord of the Dance’ during the show. Like the equally famous show ‘Riverdance’, Lord of the Dance is an Irish dance show. The show doesn’t have any talking or narration. It’s 90% Irish dancing, and through the dance a story is told. Lord of the Dance does sort of have a storyline/plot. However, I found it quite difficult to follow the plot – even after trying to read about it online. So I’ll try to summarise the plot as best I can in my Lord of the Dance theatre review!

There are some other Irish elements to the show as well, with two song performances by an amazing female singer. And there are also two violin duets. But the Irish dancing is definitely the main part of the show. It varies from solo dances, to large group dances where the tapping of their feet is almost deafening in the theatre.

The plot of Lord of the Dance

The majority of the first half of the show seemed to be introducing characters. There’s Lord of the Dance, who was originally played by Michael Flatley. Nowadays there are different performers playing this role, but they have the iconic flamboyance and stage presence that Michael Flatley was so famous for. There are a group of ‘evil’ male characters/warriors, with a lead ‘evil’ Dark Lord. And there are two main female characters – the sweet blonde girl who represents ‘love’, and the girl dressed as the red devil who represents ‘lust’. There’s also a pixie/fairly character, who appears occasionally and plays the iconic Lord of the Dance theme tune on a pipe. I think the whole show is meant to be a dream of the pixie character.

I think the general theme of the show was the fight of good against evil, and of love against lust. In the second half of the show there was some really impressive battle-style dances between the Lord of the Dance and the ‘evil’ male characters. And there were some romantic dances between the Lord of the Dance and the sweet girl, with the ‘red devil’ girl in the mix as well. I think in the end, the idea was that the ‘good’ won.

What I liked about Lord of the Dance

The highlight of this show is definitely the amazing dancing. It’s just so impressive. The dancers are amazing! There are a few different styles of Irish dancing in the show, and I thought they were all great. There’s the more traditional style of a line of dancers in a straight line with their arms by their side of interlocked. And then there are the ‘fight’ scene dances – which are usually accompanied by the loud tapping of their feet on the floor. This was my favourite style of the dancing, I thought the fight scenes with the male warrior dancers were so impressive. The noise was loud, but it was great.

And then there are also some non-tapping dances, where the dancers seem to be wearing shoes that are more like ballet shoes and their dancing is elegant and peaceful. All the dancing was just amazing, with the dance battle scenes being my favourite part of the show.

I also really like the flamboyant ‘Lord of the Dance’ character. This was the first time I’d seen Lord of the Dance, and I’ve never seen Riverdance. So I don’t have a huge amount of knowledge of the history of the development of the shows, and of Michael Flatley. I know he was an iconic dance character, and in Lord of the Dance you could really see how he would have been the star of the show. The dancer who played the main character in the 2024 show was amazing. It definitely felt like he embodied the flamboyant spirit and showmanship of what Michael Flatley would have been. He was an amazing dancer and really played to the audience. He was the type of dancer that you instantly watched whenever he came on stage, and it definitely felt like it was ‘his’ show.

What I wasn’t so sure about

I really enjoyed the Irish dancing element of the show, and found the dancing really impressive. However, there were quite a few elements of this show that I wasn’t so sure about. So I left the theatre feeling a bit confused about how much I really enjoyed it. Although the dancing was great, I found the plot really confusing. I know it’s difficult to convey a plot when there’s no dialogue in a show, but I’m sure they could have made the plot a bit clearer. There were so many dances where I couldn’t work out what was happening.

There was one dance involving the two girls, and then they came on stage dressed the same and I couldn’t work out why – I thought they were meant to be rivals. And then there was another dance where the Lord of the Dance was with the sweet girl, but then he kept going off with the ‘red devil’ girl, but then going back, and neither girl seemed to mind about that. It also wasn’t that clear who won the battle with the evil warriors. I sometimes felt distracted from enjoying the dancing because I was trying to work out what was happening with the plot and just getting confused.

Songs and violins

The two songs and violin pieces also felt a bit random as well. They seemed to just suddenly happen at random points in the show, with no relation to the plot. The songs and violins were very good, but each time it felt a bit random that the dancers would go off stage, then we’d have a song, and then the dancers would come back and carry on. The songs and violin duets interrupted the plot even more, making the whole thing even harder to make sense of.

Need to sit in the stalls

I think this show is definitely best appreciated from the stalls. It felt like the show was designed to be watched from lower down in the theatre. I was sat in the top circle of the theatre in Oxford – where I often sit for shows, and usually I’m more than happy with the view. But for this show, it definitely felt like you couldn’t enjoy the show as much from the top circle. There was a lot of video footage and projections at the back of the stage – but these were raised up high, behind some steps. So from the top circle, you could only see the very bottom of the projections and videos.

I think the projections were meant to add some atmosphere to the dances, and maybe from the stalls it might have looked impressive to see the dancers in front of the projections. But from the top circle, you completely missed the effect of the projections which was a shame. It’s a massive shame that a show doesn’t make sure a vital part of the show is visible from all the seating areas, especially as many people cannot afford the more expensive stalls tickets.

Stage floor

I also had a massive issue with the stage floor. They had put a dance floor on top of the normal stage floor, which makes completely sense. However, looking down on it from the top circle in the theatre wasn’t great. It completely reminded me of the floor in my old school gym. It was a dirty grey colour, covered in scuff marks, and with really obvious white and red lines marking various points on the stage. The floor occasionally looked better when they added some additional lighting to make the floor a different colour. But most of the time, it was just a school gym floor.

From the top circle, you ended up looking down at the floor for the whole show. So a combination of the school gym floor, and not being able to see the projections, really dampened the visual impact of the show. The dancing was still great, but the rest of the visuals were not good from the top circle. Again, I think the show was designed to be watched from the stalls, where you wouldn’t be looking straight down onto the floor so you wouldn’t notice the floor. From the stalls, you’d look across at the dancers with the projections behind, and I can imagine this would have looked good. But from the top circle, it didn’t look good, which was such a shame.

Video at the end before the encore

The video they played at the end of the show was another thing I wasn’t too sure about. There was a clear final dance, with the Lord of the Dance theme tune, and a clear ending and lots of applause. But then, they played a video at the back of the stage for several minutes. I couldn’t really see the video at all from the top circle, but I think it was a video from past Lord of the Dance shows. And then the dancers came on for their encore and bows.

A lot of people left the theatre during the video, thinking the show was over – even though there was quite a bit left when the dancers came back on stage. And the applause from the audience was dampened down after the video had been going on for so long. There was still a good amount of audience applause for the bows. But not as much as there had been after the final dance. I felt like the video just dampened down the audience’s enthusiasm just before the end, and lost the momentum from the impressive final dance. The long video just felt really unnecessary and made the whole ending less impressive.

Would I recommend Lord of the Dance

If you haven’t seen Lord of the Dance before, I would definitely recommend going to see it. It’s an enjoyable show with really impressive dancing. However, I would recommend sitting in the stalls so you can see the video projections and don’t have to look at the very unimpressive stage floor. And I’d also recommend not trying too hard to follow the plot, because it’s really confusing. As long as you sit in the stalls and just focus on enjoying the dancing rather than the plot, I think it’s an enjoyable show. Just bring ear plugs if you’re sensitive to noise – it can get very loud!

Hope you enjoyed my Lord of the Dance theatre review! Check out my other theatre reviews for more shows in the West End, across the UK and the world.