Riverdance

As anyone who has ever been in New York on St. Patrick's Day will agree, there's something Irish about everyone, and it is that something which is sharply captured in 'Riverdance,' the spectacular dance show, where its very face is the map of Ireland. As everyone now knows 'Riverdance' started in Dublin in 1995, remarkably as a brilliantly conceived spin-off from a seven-minute intermission piece in the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. It has danced a long way since then, developing into an international phenomenon, with troupes careening and criss-crossing the world; not so long ago there was even one 'Riverdance' company installed for well over a year in New York.

The concept of 'Riverdance' is both simple and adroit. A Celtic-looking rock-like setting (actually it seems more Druidically Stonehenge than anything else) with highly colored projections to vary the look, a load of Irish music and a lot of Irish dancing. The huge popular success of the show derives in part from Moya Doherty's canny producing - all pieces are put together with breathtaking theatricality - and John McColgan's swift, deft staging, which works like a computer but still manages to pervade an unexpected but not unpleasant impression of homespun charm over-riding, or perhaps over-dancing, its awe-inspiring efficiency, and its sweet and sure ability to deliver on every promise, implicit and explicit, suggested by the very idea of an Irish dance spectacular.