The last dance
RIVERDANCE is one of the biggest international dance phenomena, seen by more than two billion people on stage and on television, but this year it all comes to an end.
After 13 years touring the globe, the Irish dance show is now on its farewell tour, taking in Birmingham’s National Indoor Arena next month.
And making sure all the wheels run smoothly is Erdington-based production stage manager Marc Anderson.
He admits there is a strange feeling to being on a farewell tour.
“It is quite odd. When we have broken up after dates before, we are saying goodbye knowing we will all see each other again in a few weeks but this time it really will be goodbye.”
Marc has been with Riverdance since January of last year when he stage managed the European tour before going to the Far East with the show.
“My work before this had been in the UK and it has been a real bonus getting to see new places,” he says. “The Far East tour was Japan, China and Taiwan and you can’t turn down the chance to see something like the Great Wall.”
Brought up in Llanelli in South Wales before moving to Birmingham as an adult, Marc was fascinated by theatre from a young age. Beginning as an actor, he rapidly realised his real interest lay backstage.
“I was about 11 when I played my first part in a school production, in South Pacific,” he says. “Then I really wanted to go backstage but because I was a child they couldn’t let me. I was about 14 or 15 when I started working backstage. I joined just about every amateur theatre company I could and ended up working on shows at the same time as trying to do schoolwork.”
But the experience paid off as Marc then gained a place at the Guildford School of Acting before starting on his first West End show Alarms and Excursions.
In the past 14 years he has worked with productions including The Lion King, High Society, Sunset Boulevard and Santa Claus the Musical – many of which have been to Birmingham. “It is good coming to Birmingham with Riverdance and going to the NIA as I am usually at the Hippodrome or the Alex,” he says. “One of the good things about this tour has been going back to cities I know but visiting different venues.”
* Ticket Info
Riverdance comes to Birmingham NIA on March 9-14, tickets: 0844 338 8000 and www.thenia.co.uk
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