Vamos Cuba! (Sadler's Wells, 11 August)

For something so amiably goofy, this had some really terrible politics. 

We start with revolutionary banners, and fair enough: we're near Corbyn's riding. And there's a group of youth at center stage, in standard youth-group pose--which is to say, in an ensemble like something from a "Step Up" film. But, again, fair enough: these are the Children of the Revolution, waiting for their Place on the World Stage, etc. etc.. 

The revolutionary banners come down, and we're in an airport, facing a departure board for the same places you can fly to from Heathrow (YYZ!). And, wouldn't you know it: we're just in time for a dance stressing the sexual availability of Cuban stewardesses. Cuba is, it seems, open for transnational capitalism, and you're invited--to ogle! I saw heads in the audience wagging at a later segment, where everyone onstage looks longingly at photos of pre-Revolutionary Cuba, these duly followed by a series of recreated dances from that time. I don't mean to imply that everything from Cuba needs to take a Guardian-reading line towards Cuban politics: I defer to Cubans themselves to judge their own politics. But I vaguely seem to recall some issues with Batista-era Cuba, at least outside of the patrons' areas of its nightclubs. COME BACK MEYER LANSKY, ALL IS FORGIVEN seemed to be a theme of the evening.

The weirdest, weirdest, weirdest section had a character dressed in these sort of military fatigues--and, it being this production, high heels--dancing about for the obligatory montage of revolutionary photos. At the moment where Fidel appears, she screamed. So what the production thought about, you know, the substance of Cuban politics for the last sixty years was totally unreadable, but deeply emotional--she either liked or hated it, folks, and you can suit which to your mood. Meanwhile here's some Raggaeton while the stewardesses come out wearing even less.

What unfolded throughout was a very Anglo fantasy of what South American people are like, constantly this side of shagging or fighting. The latter took place randomly among those at this airport, and included a segment of what I believe was foxy boxing. Even one of the principal dancers, identified by her stethoscope as a doctor (SRSLY) got dragged into this. Later, everyone drank from a giant bottle of rum. The production was inclusive of Cuba's racial diversity only insofar as it made everyone engage in this pan-Latin minstresly. 

I felt, in the end, like a nineteenth-century British theatergoer, facing down acts from hot-blooded foreigners from around the world put up on stage for my amusement. (This was at Sadler's Wells, even--a proper Victorian venue.) This account of the rest of the world would have flattered a blushing Mr. Pooter; we generally do better in 2016, although from the giddy audience at the end you'd think this was Mama Mia! set in a place where the Streep-equivalents might come home with you afterwards, you Easyjet lothario. Blech, blech and blech.