Tap Dogs

Take a bunch of tap dancers, dancing from ages as early as 4, a dose of industrial Newcastle, throw in your typical aussie bloke comedy and you've got an entertaining show.

Right from the outset, you get a taste of the raw energy you're about to see. And you get a pinch of the comedy they'll use. In one scene, you only see the bottom half of their feet and the antics get a huge laugh from the audience and even a chuckle from yours truly.

The set is very basic, if you've been to the live show, you'll know what I mean. It's a basic construction type environment with metal and wooden props that make some good tapping noises. One of the props they use is a pad of some sort that when stepped on, produces a synthesised sound that all 6 tap dogs use in producing there own musical track.

This disc is the original Australian cast perfoming live in london. Onto the disc itself...

The video source is taken from film. You notice this immeadiately as it gives a very picture like image. The cover states the aspect ratio is full screen when in fact it is 1.85 widescreen, non-enhanced.

This was generally a good transfer. It's not up there with the best film transfers on dvd but it's nowhere near the worst. Blacks are dark dark grey, not totally black. Colors are evenly saturated but there's not that much that really takes control of the image as such. It's also a nice sharp transfer.

The bit-rate is reasonably high at around the 6-7 mark and this helps when the camera follows the lightning fast feet. Movement this quick is always a challenge for the MPEG codec but it holds up very well.

Here's where the disc get's interesting. As you watch the performance you can hear the tapping of their shoes panning from left to right as they move across the stage. For a moment there, I was hearing tap noises coming from everywhere, and I soon realised why.

All across the front of the stage you can see 5 clearly placed microphone setups. They are positioned across the stage as if it were your front sound stage and it works great.

As you watch them tap from left to right, you hear the sound pan left to right and vice versa. In some places, as all of them are tapping away, you can clearly hear how their rythym is different.

The only time the rest of the sound stage comes into effect is when the audience is cheering or applauding. At this stage it also seems like the surrounds have been contrived in a way that you actually hear them fade in louder in the rears and fade out softer when the applauding stops. Either way, it's a nicely done soundtrack and almost demo material to check how your sound stage is actually setup.

Not much in terms of extras on this disc but you do get a bucket load of production notes to go through, ranging from the producers and directors to the australian and international casts.

Also included is a short (1:30 mins) interview with the shows creator, Dein Perry. This is not listed in the extras section but a little camera icon comes up in the production notes section, page 1/21.

I enjoyed the show immensly. I did a bit of dance during my high school years, not as fast as this, but I know when doing a performance for more than 30 minutes your legs start to give way. These guys keep it up for more than twice as long and you really do appreciate the effort involved.

As a show itself, they've got some great skits and some entertaining routines that will surely impress. This is not Michael Flattering - Lord of the Prance, but for the blue collar aussie, who'd want to be prancing?