Stage Dragon: Strictly’s AJ Waltzes Into a Warm Welcome at Packed G Live

Published on: 13 Mar, 2019
Updated on: 13 Mar, 2019

AJ and his dancers performed in front of a packed auditorium at G Live

By Ferenc Hepp

Alex Joseph Pritchard is well known as AJ to millions of people, especially Strictly Come Dancing fans, and Guildford happily welcomed his company at the end of his eight-date tour with Get On The Floor.

There were famous faces in the packed auditorium of G Live on Tuesday evening (March 12), including AJ’s brother, Curtis, another professional dancer, starring in the Irish version of Dancing with the Stars, AJ’s Strictly partner from 2017, the former Saturdays singer Mollie King, and another Strictly star, Aljaz Skorjanec.

The show is AJ’s first own tour, but he is joined on stage by a talented cast of supporting dancers (Callum Aylott, Jordan Isaac, Caine Sobers, Jasmine Joy, Crystal Leah, Katie Priest and Abbie Quinnen) and two solo singers (Paige Brooklyn-Cook and Sandy Grigelis) both of whom have their individual moments and are blessed with strong powerful voices.

AJ is very much the central character, but there are regular numbers where the stage is handed over to the other members of the company, allowing AJ a short rest and costume changes.

The premise is to showcase the different styles of dances with which we are familiar from Strictly with styles from around the world. This is complemented by lots of sparkly costumes and high energy right from the very beginning. It is only about four numbers in when the tempo temporarily changes to a slower duet.

The set is bright and sharp, enhanced by effective lighting from Jon Smith. The styles performed are fast-paced and run smoothly, including line dancing, burlesque and Bollywood, as well as the regular Strictly genres. Members of the audience volunteered for a Charleston Challenge towards the end of the first half. In fact, we all joined in the “thigh-thigh-bottom-bottom-up-up-shake-shake-shake” choreography which got everyone going again just in time to build up a thirst for an interval drink.

The second half continues in the same manner, with only a minimal number of slight timing issues from the dancers. Some of the ensemble could have had more interesting and varied facial expressions, but AJ looked as if he genuinely enjoyed himself and cared about his audience, the front row especially came in for a lot of eye contact, which rubbed off on the rest of the company.

They even managed to fit in a question-and-answer session, although I am not sure how useful the questions were about being able to say Strictly in Russian and asking AJ what his favourite dinosaur was, a witty member of the audience suggesting that may have been Anton du Beke.

The audience was made up of all ages and clearly enjoyed the show. This just demonstrates that thanks to Strictly and role models such as AJ, dancing is for everyone. He deserves to progress even further than the semi-finals this year.