West Side Story is known as the “Best Broadway musical of all time” and MK Theatre is lucky enough to have this production return on its 50^th Anniversary tour.

The story is a modern day Romeo & Juliet but instead of two families at war it is two New York gangs, The Jets and the Sharks.  A young girl, Maria falls in love with Tony who heads up the rival gang that her brother Bernado is at war with.  Their love crosses the boundaries of racial hatred but as in Romeo and Juliet, it ends tragically.

The original production directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins has been excellently reproduced by Joey McKneely.  The show bursts alive with an explosion of performers onto the stage, the music is pacey and vibrant and it was a total dance fest.  The stage set and back drop of original New York scenes work well, the design and usage of it was ingenious, however a little noisy when moving around at times.

The performance of the night was from the seasoned actress Jayde Westaby who played Anita.  She was right on the money with every note that issued from her lips and her rendition of “America” was totally fabulous, receiving the loudest cheer and applause of the night.  Maria played by Sofia Escobar was sweet and demure not really pairing well with her “Romeo” Tony played by Australian born Daniel Koek, who had a nice voice but didn’t gel well at times with Escobar.  I was expecting more from the gang members, they were excellent dancers, but they were very unconvincing in their roles.  I’ve seen more testosterone flying about the stage in the Bolshoi ballet.

All that said, I thoroughly enjoyed the performance and so did the packed MK Theatre giving the longest applause I have heard in a long time…..so much so, the cast could not believe it and reduced some of them to tears.  A fabulous night out for any musical lover!