Published: 29 July 2010
by ANGELA COBBINAH

BOY Blue’s award-winning Pied Piper was always going to be a hard act to follow. Staged at the Barbican last Christmas, it signalled hip-hop dance’s coming of age with a show that combined dazzling choreography with a compelling narrative. 

Over the Edge certainly has the moves. What it lacks is a storyline to take it beyond being a series of setpieces that leave one asking: what was the point of that? 

There is a connecting thread though – magazine headlines, reproduced in the programme notes, that inspire members of the 15-strong troupe to act them out in dance. 

So we have a commuter strutting her stuff on the catwalk after reading a feature on a new fashion collection and “My Alien Abduction” prompting the weird but rather silly “Unusual Force” scene. 

But it is not enough to create a satisfying whole. The show is saved by dance displays we have come to expect from Boy Blue, Micky J’s thumping soundtrack and great lighting from Mike Gunning. 

All three combine to produce the standout piece of the night, “House of Blue”, in which the lead dancer, Issac “Turbo” Baptiste, conducts individual dancers in a club to different strands of the music before merging them all together.   

Run ended: Boy Blue will return to the Barbican next year