Aljaž Škorjanec and Janette Manrara have spent a decade building a live touring format that’s some distance from the competitive ballroom where Strictly Come Dancing first made them household names. Let’s Face the Music and Dance! returns Škorjanec and Manrara to a format they showed us with last year’s sell-out A Night to Remember — the live band, the ensemble of dancers and singers presenting a fully-staged song-and-dance revue, and the same enthusiastic audience eager to see them at Symphony Hall almost a year on from their last visit.
Symphony Hall is not a theatre, of course, and the production is designed to suit. A central scenic backing piece allows entrances through the centre and from the wings; black and white modular blocks can be reconfigured to create different levels and pictures across the evening. The black and white aesthetic — extending to the costumes — carries a clear visual message: the piano keys from which so much of the celebrated music originates. Lighting introduces colour at key moments with a sense of occasion, all giving us a production that would sit comfortably on any theatre stage.
Working broadly in chronological order, the programme opens with Cole Porter and Irving Berlin and closes with Quincy Jones, a man whose songs have been performed by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson. Between those bookends, the show moves through Gershwin, a musical theatre section drawing on Kander and Ebb and Bob Fosse, then West Side Story with its renowned Jerome Robbins choreography, before the second half brings Carole King’s Tapestry, boogie-woogie and jive, Bacharach, and a power ballad sequence. The medley format mixes slow and up-tempo numbers within each section, so each segment feels neat and complete. All the arrangements to create this feel are by Jack Tinker, who has done a fine job of assembling the sections coherently.
Škorjanec and Manrara are assured as both hosts and performers. Their patter — delivered partly between themselves, partly directly to the audience — has the ease of a partnership that has been together for ten years. The hosting is shared with Tom Seals, who functions as bandleader, pianist, vocalist and MC. His conversations with Škorjanec – which typically fill the time while Manrara gets changed, though they’re entertaining enough to stand on their own – are relaxed and witty in a way that feels unscripted. There is a running joke about whether Manrara might be the next Strictly host, and moments of genuine spontaneity when things don’t go quite to plan.
The dancing is, as you would expect, excellent. Both leads show us a broad range of styles with skill, whether it’s more classic ballroom or moonwalking, and are supported by four ensemble dancers who are given space of their own, handling substantial sections without the principals with real assurance. The range across the evening is impressive — Latin and ballroom giving way to jazz and swing, with the Fosse-influenced numbers in the musical theatre section. Škorjanec and Manrara have an easy physical chemistry that makes even the quieter, more intimate numbers feel considered rather than perfunctory, and there are moments of genuine spectacle in the bigger set pieces that remind you why they built such a following on Strictly in the first place.
There’s more to this show than just the dancing, though. Manrara reveals a genuine vocal ability — rooted in childhood musical theatre training and recently seen in a 2025 production of Chicago — which she shows with confidence, whether dancing or still. There’s a sultry Too Darn Hot with the Kander and Ebb section giving her even more to work with. Vocalist Jill Marie Cooper has an excellent and versatile voice: she delivers Close to You with warmth that does justice to the original, and commands the power ballad sequence in the second half with ease. It’s good to see her being given space to perform as a solo vocalist, rather than just being there as a backing singer. Seals provides a contrasting male voice from the piano, though he is more naturally at home in some styles than others. Škorjanec contributes vocally in the Gershwin section too — not with any serious pretension, but with good humour and an awareness of his own limitations that sits well with the tone of the evening. The whole evening is supported by a superb six-piece band that plays live throughout.
When, at the end of the evening, Škorjanec and Manrara announce this will be their last tour for a while, there’s evident disappointment from their fans in the audience who have enjoyed an excellent and varied evening’s entertainment.
With its warmth, wit and variety, Let’s Face the Music and Dance! is well worth catching as it continues its tour.
Reviewed on 26 April 2026 and on tour
The Reviews Hub Star Rating
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8
