Jubilations Dinner Theatre's current show Strut & Jive The Night Away has many of the components that makes attending theatre a fun night out: a solid, talented cast and a fun disco soundtrack. The framework is there but unfortunately on the night I attended, things didn't seem to click the way I would have expected. Marred by technical problems and mic problems, the cast showed a great deal of professionalism in how they dealt with the problems but it did take away from the show.

Based loosely on the old Dick Tracy comics and show, the plot revolves around the inferno club, site of the hot stuff dance competition judged by police chief Pepperspray (Jim Bell). Owners Johnny Lava (Danny Gullekson) and Velvet Agogo (Crystal Chaitan) seem to be up to no good, and it is up to detective Dirk Tracy (Christopher Munroe) and Kacey Elliote (Melissa Dorsey) to find out what it is. Things are a little complicated when Dirk discovers his on again/off again girlfriend Polly Ester (Alexy Strumecki) working at the club.

The songs picked for the show are a lot of fun, with a heavy ABBA influence - and really who doesn't love ABBA? It makes for an entertaining evening.

That said, there was one thing that really bothered me. The Johnny Lava character is over the top, flamboyant, and quite obviously gay, but it is all just an act. This is the third show in recent memory for me at Jubilations that has had a “gay” character, but with an attitude that, wink wink, he's not actually gay so don't worry. While I don't expect Jubilations will ever have an in depth gay character, to try and play off the gay stereotype as ok because the character isn't actually gay, borders on offensive and stale. If this is the type of humor that Jubilations must constantly return to, it is time to look at freshening up the writers. For every fantastic show the company puts on, and there have been a lot of them, things like this will turn people off from returning.

That is not to take away anything from Danny Gullekson, who plays the Lava role. His energy on stage is fantastic and one of the highlights of the show (and the boy sure can backflip!) It is unfortunate that he has been stuck with having to play a character in this manner (and it really doesn't fit with the dialogue either) as I really enjoyed his work in last year’s CSI: Calgary.

Is Strut and Jive The Night Away worth seeing? Yes. Looking past the gay stereotype there is some real talent there that deserves support. There are some very clever jokes and, as mentioned before, a lot of disco favorites that will have you tapping your foot and shaking your butt in your chair.