MU Midlands Organiser Stephen Brown discussed Dirty Dancing’s ‘dirty dealing’ on The Breakfast Show with Trish Adudu, BBC Radio Coventry & Warwickshire.
In her introduction Trish Adudu highlighted the problem, “Tonight is the premier of Dirty Dancing the musical at Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre, but not everyone is having the time of their life with the show. A group of musicians are planning to hold a peaceful demonstration outside of the Belgrade ahead of the show to express their anger at the show’s producers slashing the number of live musicians involved in the performance.”
“Our view in the Musicians’ Union is that a musical should be exactly that” said the MU’s Stephen. “This production of Dirty Dancing is billed as the ‘ultimate live experience’, and we think music should be kept as live as possible. But the majority of music on the current production of Dirty Dancing uses a backing track. So that’s what this issue is all about.
“We’re here to protect the interests of musicians and the employment of musicians. That’s what the Musicians’ Union is all about.
“And I think that if you compare the ticket prices on this tour to previous prices, they are fairly comparable. On the previous production there was an eight-piece live band, but on this production there are five actor-musicians and, as I say, the vast majority of music is actually a backing track.”
The Breakfast Show did ask the producers of Dirty Dancing for comment. They did not appear on the show but did send in a statement - in it, says Trish, “they talk about their concern that visits to the theatre are in danger of being spoilt by the ‘unnecessary bombardment of defamatory nonsense’”
If you think raising awareness of the value of live music is very necessary and not at all nonsense, join our demonstration outside Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre from 6.30pm.
You can listen to the full interview via BBC iPlayer, from 1:34 on 30/01/2017.