Tower Street Theatre, Belfast
The turbulent life story of George Best is easily accessed through the archives of gossip columns, news pages, television chat shows and a variety of lurid books.
So don't go looking for evidence of the dark days of his addictions to alcohol, women and gambling in this Maiden Voyage production. Far from being a danse macabre, choreographer Andy Howitt's homage is an unashamed victory celebration, a largely upbeat retrospective of the glory days.
It spans four decades and features key moments in his life on and off the pitch, some of which are rendered instantly recognisable by the recreation of his expressive body language.
Howitt bookends the piece with dramatic commentary from Best’s testimonial game at Belfast’s Windsor Park in 1988, which ended in fairy-tale fashion with the man of the moment scoring the winning penalty.
The structure falls neatly into five equal segments, signposted by David Goodall's pulsating score, which ingeniously fuses contemporary music – from Doris Day, The Champs, Small Faces, The Undertones, Bob Dylan and George Michael – with his own original variations. Music is a great catalyst for memory, and hard-hitting lyrics such as "It's all too beautiful . . . I feel inclined to blow my mind", from the Faces' Itchycoo Park, and Dylan's "You've been down to the bottom with a bad man, babe", from Baby, Stop Cryin', powerfully touch parts of the narrative not consistently conveyed by the dance sequences.
Surrounded by four female dancers, representing his mother, his wife, his team-mates and his many and various girlfriends, Ryan O’Neill sensitively portrays the ever-young, pretty boy George, while Stevie Prickett brings an underlying world-weariness to those moments when the glittering lifestyle threatens to turn discordant and distorted.
Contemporaries of Best, who lived through his roller-coaster highs and lows, will be in tune with this hour of high-energy performance, even if younger audience members may find some of the dance narrative a little hard to follow. Touring Armagh, Derry, Lisburn, Omagh and Downpatrick
