I HAVE seen Riverdance several times, but have never seen Michael Flatley, so I was keen to see him in Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games, as this show is supposed to be his swansong. Michael Flatley changed the face of Irish dancing across the western world when he created Riverdance and then Lord of the Dance. He also holds the Guinness world record for the number of taps per second - an astonishing 35.

My daughter and I settled back in our seats waiting for Mr Flatley to make an appearance. Only he didn’t.....apart from as a hologram at the very end. Having said that, we really enjoyed the show.

The story emerges from the dreams of Little Spirit, a lithe, acrobatic dancer who makes frequent appearances throughout, playing her whistle to the famous Lord of the Dance tune. It is a tale of good versus evil. In her dream The Lord of there Dance represents all things in the world but he must fit against evil in the for. Of the Dark Lord and his army. Morrighan the Seductress comes between The Lord and his true love Saoirse, whilst Erin the Goddess puts into song the words that the dances convey.

The dancers were amazing. Whilst you can see the Irish roots in each dance, other styles of dance have been incorporated, including ballet, tap and disco. There is a lot more upper body movement than is normal Irish dancing, but still the same precision footwork. The title of Lord of the Dance on this occasion was handed over to Morgan Comer: whilst he lacks the charisma (and ego) of Mr Flatley, he was superb in the role and had a good report with the audience. My favourite numbers were where the men all danced together, highlighting their sheer power and speed and the noise of their feet was tremendous (although I suspect the sound was either recorded or amplified).

The costumes were sumptuous, with only a couple of numbers in traditional Irish style. We had Celtic robes, tutus, catsuits, harem pants with splits all the way up each side, tuxedos (men and women) and even robots - a bit bizarre to see Irish/disco dancing robots. In one dance, the girls came on in very pretty Irish dresses, all in different colours, only to strip off down to sequinned bras and tights. They should have worn thicker tights though, as it was not a very flattering look, proving that even the slimmest people can have wobbly bits!

I did not particularly like the songs sung by Erin the Goddess (Rachael O'Connor). She had a very good voice, they were slow power ballads, just not to my taste and I would rather have seen more dancing. I did like the fiddle players though, Giada Costenaro Cunningham and Eimear Reilly, who appeared in short sparkly dresses and vertiginous heels and danced while playing. How they managed to dance in heels let alone whilst playing the fiddle is no mean feat.

The stage setting was very different. Instead of having painted backdrops, there were CGI images projected onto the back, constantly changing, showing enchanted forests, lakes, waterfalls, mountains, rivers and lakes, unicorns, birds and flowers, flames and even a volcano. I heard some people say this was a bit tacky, but I thought it worked extremely well, in a Disney-ish way. In Dangerous Games, the background was lots of pink and red shapes moving around and a huge pair of bright green eyes opening and closing, which was reminiscent of a James Bond theme.

Right at the end, after the stunning Lord of the Dance finale with all the cast and a standing ovation, there appeared not one, but three dancing holograms of Michael Flatley, who proceeded to show why he is the real Lord of the Dance. It was very cleverly done, almost lifelike only much bigger. The three then turned into one and that one turned into a flame and disappeared.

I was expecting Lord of the Dance to be similar to Riverdance, but it was very different. It is a lot less traditional, encompassing more styles of dance and music, with imaginative choreography and stage sets. I hope this not going to be the final Lord of the Dance tour ever, as my daughter Amelia and I really enjoyed it and would quite happily go back. I wish we hadn't waited so long to see it. Now I can't get the theme tune out of my head.

Sue Cockrem