Edits/The Featherstonehaughs, Riverside Studios - review

When Lea Anderson formed the Featherstonehaughs (the observation that this is pronounced Fanshaws has become a time-honoured dance critic's tic) in 1988, it was the only
all-male dance company in Britain, but far from being Anderson's only claim to distinction.

She had already been choreographing and performing for four years with the all-female Cholmondeleys ("Chumleys"), and was a major force behind the British dance boom of the Eighties, with popular, quirky performances as demotic in their movement vocabulary as they were cerebral in their construction.

Her companies have now lost their Arts Council funding, and the Featherstonehaughs concluded their final tour last weekend. Truly it's the end of an era - and like many historical eras it has ended in cross-dressing and self-indulgence.

Edits, the last ever Featherstonehaughs production, is a self-confessedly foredoomed attempt to bring the conventions of cinema to dance. The six dancers swap wigs and gowns to turn themselves into fictional screen divas, synthesised from the iconic actresses of the Forties, Sixties and Seventies. Three different sized wooden frames, along with luminous rectangles on the floor and quick lighting changes, allow them to present their cameos in long-shot or close-up.

But even knowing the rationale, it's hard to work out what's going on. After the initial frisson of trying to decide whether some gurning guy in a red wig is Bette Davies or just a cruel reference to Rita Hayworth's eventual dementia, there is little to hold the attention. Ironically, much of Edits could have been left on the cutting room floor.

After it was done, however, Anderson and her Cholmondeleys co-founders came out and performed a vintage dance from 1985 to Nina Simone's My Baby Just Cares for Me. As they wiped off make-up, pressed their skin for signs of age and pumped their fists, they looked like children who had decided that the whole human repertoire of quotidian movement was their play chest. Every miniaturist instant was surprising, witty and a perfect reminder of how much there is to miss after this farewell.

The Featherstonehaughs: EDITS
Riverside Studios
Crisp Road, Hammersmith, W6 9RL