Review: Stories – RB Dance Company’s slick tap show returns to London

This show has been in preparation for almost a decade and touring since November 2019, now making a return to London’s Peacock Theatre almost exactly two years after its UK premiere. The slickness of the performance and the tight unity of the ten dancers bore witness to a show that has well and truly bedded in.

At just a few minutes beyond the hour mark, it’s also a work that doesn’t overstay its welcome and sent the satisfied audience home with a spring in their step, particularly after the booming, stamping rhythmic thud of an exciting post-curtain-call performance to Romain Rachline Borgeaud’s Rappels.

Borgeaud is a multi-talented man who created RB Dance Company in 2018, having trained at the Rosella Hightower Dance School in Cannes and the Ailey School in New York, and performed in many classics of musical theatre, including A Chorus Line, Cats, Anything Goes, Singin’ in the Rain and 42nd Street. The entertainment entrepreneur Simon Cowell had some hand in Borgeaud’s career elevation because his company was twice a finalist (2018 and 2024) in La France a un incroyable talent (the French equivalent to Britain’s Got Talent).

For Stories, Borgeaud wrote the libretto, choreographed the dance, composed the music and directed the show, and the cool interaction of most of these creative elements was clear from the start. The odd one out was the narrative, which was always ambiguous, and not made any clearer by the (very brief) programme notes.

A young actor named Icarus, or Icare in French (Thiméo Garin), is already a celebrity but remains under the oppressive Svengali-like influence of his director, Stan (Jérôme Louis). The action moves from a newspaper to a brawl on the streets – Borgeaud’s choreographed fight scenes were excellent – and on to a train, among other changes of scene, and Federica Mugnai’s excellent mobile set design, arranged at various levels, allowed all this to happen seamlessly.

Margaux Ponsard’s costume designs were also effective, not least in the off-the-shoulder red dress with a wicked slit to just under the hip, worn by the main female character, Elle, the subject of Borgeaud’s biographical lyric ‘The lady in the damn pretty dress is a mess, But oh man, she’s a damn pretty girl’! Sandra Pericou-Habaillou brought the lyric to theatrical life in a suitably sensual, smouldering performance. The other headline performer is Le Baron, a kind of mysterious, shadowy, entrepreneurial figure, played by Geoffrey Goutorbe.

Despite the ambiguity of the narrative, there is a very strong sense of theatre and an impressive momentum to the work, which one feels stems from Borgeaud’s considerable experience of being a part of some impressive musical theatre history. He knows how to drive a show and has clearly edited out any dull moments that might have interrupted the impetus.

Stories was promoted with the byline of ‘The Tap Dance Sensation’ and I’d like to say that the tap was sensational, but the percussive noise from the performers’ feet was all but drowned out by the recorded score, which may or may not have also featured the sound of tap. Borgeaud’s music was excellent, driving that pulsating momentum through the work, and so it wasn’t a great hardship, and the harmonies of the performers were so good that I’m sure that their tap rhythms were also excellent.

Stories plays at London’s Peacock Theatre until 31 October and will be followed by a UK tour to Northampton (Royal & Derngate, 3 November), Bournemouth (Pavilion Theatre, 7 November), Bradford (Bradford Live, 8 November), Edinburgh (King’s Theatre, 9 November) and Truro (Hall for Cornwall, 11 November). If you live near any of those venues and are looking for a good night out that leaves time for a meal and a few drinks, then this is the show for you!