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Dancing Shoes

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Four stars

 

It’s hard to be a private dancer when your support group mates turn up at the door. No intervention is required, however, for the veteran pocket rocket who soon becomes known to the world as Dancing Donny. Donny may have two left feet, but away from the crowd, he gets the sort of kick from a soft shoe shuffle that the booze he once numbed himself with could never match. 

 

Craig and Jay have never seen the like, with Jay in particular spotting a chance to make a fortune once phone footage of Donny’s shape throwing goes viral. While Donny is none the wiser about some of the less flattering online comments, he loves every second of being the centre of attention. 

 

Stephen Christopher and Graeme Smith’s comic drama plays with expectations about what a show about a bunch of addicts should be like by having its Leith based trio introduce themselves to the audience with a ‘no childhood trauma’ rule. Brian Logan’s speedy revival of a show first seen as part of A Play, a Pie and a Pint’s lunchtime theatre initiative at Glasgow’s Oran Mor venue has fun with this narrative trick, with all three actors embracing the mini routines that frame the action. The study of the perils of online culture and the powers of dancing like nobody is watching that emerges becomes a liberating force beyond such darkly observed humour.

 

As Craig and Jay, Lee Harris and Craig McLean are the perfect foils to Donny as they chase their own potential through him. As Donny, Stephen Docherty burls through the play’s nuanced exchanges with a mix of vulnerability and deadpan timing. Out of this, Christopher and Smith’s creation taps into a need for meaning in a world requiring ever bigger fixes in a feelgood hit that suggests everyone might benefit from stepping out and dancing to the beat of their own drum.


The Herald, December 11th 2025

 

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