Red Hot and Ready – Shaftesbury Theatre – Sunday 22nd June 2025

(Rated 4/5)

Well Dianne Buswell & Vito Coppola certainly were ‘Red Hot’, but I was not ‘Ready’ until now to write something about the enormous fun experience we had with them. Does the fact that it is actually ‘Red Hot’ (31°C) today help? Well, no, not really, but thankfully I made a few notes already. For me this kind of heat is too hot to do anything – and yet in the background I’m watching people hitting tennis balls at Wimbledon – I mean how on earth?! Yesterday, Carlos Alcaraz got involved in helping a spectator who had got into trouble in the heat just watching them play! I guess I’m going off at quite a tangent, yet, somehow, I want to remind us all that we need to try to cool our world down or we will all be the reddest of hots and not ready for anything at all! I think I’m channelling my dear Mum here! 😉

Dear Dianne Buswell & Vito Coppola really were Red Hot & Ready on that not quite so hot Sunday evening, and such lovely fun people telling their stories, dancing beautifully and movingly for us and interacting with lots of adorable banter. We had a thoroughly enjoyable time! Yes, maybe unusual for me to be going to a Strictly Dance Show that does not involve Mr Radebe, but these two have both won my heart too for maybe a little bit different reasons. Di is such a delightful Aussie with a beautiful sparkling nature, yet I also feel capable to being a calming influence. Might be needed with the absolutely effervescent puppy Vito, who seems to have boundless energy. Apparently, their interaction was noticed in a show before by Strictly choreographer Jason Gilkeson, who had the idea of putting them together. Di has been in Strictly for around eight years now, and with her trademark red hair and joyful attitude in her dance has made quite the impression. Add to that she happily met her current partner Joe Sugg as a result of Strictly – getting to the final with him – and gone one step further winning with the captivating blind comedian Chris McCausland, who is now such a firm friend. Though Vito has only been doing Strictly three years, in that time he won with Ellie Leach, and has also won Celebrity Masterchef! I was hoping he’d cook us spaghetti and aubergines; if you know you know 😉.

They were joined by singers Lois Faith and Sam Turrell, who have wonderful voices, though unfortunately a little drowned out by Henry Soriano’s drums. I don’t think Henry was to blame there – for some reason drums always seem to be set too high! Completing the musicians was Gareth Weedon playing keyboards and acting as musical director. They all interacted beautifully with all the dancers, who were from an absolute wealth of disciplines including ballet – Talia Fowler - and breakdancing – Jaih Betote – making the show such a dynamic exciting watch. The other four were Ana Riera, Rosa Carne, Harijs Locs and Robbie Kmetoni.

Hardly a surprise that the dancing was so full of variety – from Di and Vito themselves as well as their cast – and so accomplished. With such talents you feel completely at ease and can just enjoy the spectacle. Where I guess there was a really lovely surprise were the kind of rest times on what you imagine might be Vito’s sofa. He is pretty house proud as you can see in him being ‘Man About The House’. As I mentioned above, choreographer Jason Gilkeson had noticed a kind of chemistry and I imagine in Strictly terms they pair well as dancers, but they also pair well in all other performances ways. Their lovely banter on the sofa was beautiful, fun, funny and felt completely natural. I mean clearly it was scripted and they must do pretty much the same every performance, but you don’t really feel that. In their nattering you find out more about both their stories. The joked they could be cousins as they both have Italian mothers. And Di told Vito he was her best friend, yet kept adding after… various other of the Strictly dancers until he was way down the list. By the end of the show, though, she promoted him to second best friend 😊 Di, of course, is the current Strictly Champion and also a BAFTA Winner – both thanks to Chris McCausland – but clearly she does not want to brag about it lol! As already mentioned, Vito is an ex Strictly Champion and Masterchef Champion. Are we going to get Spaghetti and Aubergines I was still wondering?! I guess I should maybe explain for anyone who doesn’t know. Ellie&Vito called themselves ‘Team Aubergine’ due to Vto’s love of Aubergines, especially in the dish Parmigiana, and they got matching aubergine-shaped bee (symbolising resilience) tattoos to commemorate their time together.

Di shared the story of her journey to becoming a Strictly Pro Dancer through narrative and dance too, interacting with all the other dancers as she humorously and emotionally told us how her family in Oz are such amazing support and helped her all they could to get to Blackpool, England – the Home of Ballroom. Two of the dancers wore a dark brown and fair wig to represent Claudia and Tess haha!

Vito and Di discussed and illustrated their passions too. For Di it’s Joe Sugg and she is ‘Mad About The Boy’. For Vito – and finally we get there – it’s cooking! And he gets down to making something – though it’s not spaghetti and aubergines (though he thinks about those a lot when he is dancing) – but rather he baked a Red Velvet Cupcake. Various things went wrong during his on-stage demo, including dropped eggs – and in a true Blue Peter fashion there was a lot of ‘Here’s one I made earlier’ – but eventually Di got her cupcake! And I didn’t get my spaghetti aubergine hmph! I might try making a cupcake, though I’d rather have it purple velvet and without chocolate 😉

At one point Vito’s family interrupted proceedings with a call to his mobile, which was initially blamed on an audience member. Again, obviously all pre-planned/recorded, but very amusing with lots of chat in Italian as yet more family members appeared on the screen at the back of the stage and we got to say ‘Hi’.

And, on the subject of the stage, it was a little small and cramped. Still superb dancing, but a shame they couldn’t really fully spread their wings in their Ballroom & Latin numbers especially, where they’d obviously be used to a much larger floor.

My favourite ‘numbers’: ‘Moon River’ – beautiful song beautiful dancing; ‘Hometown Glory’ – incorporating their homes and such a gorgeous song; ‘Brother’ – an extraordinarily special performance in movement between Vito and Jaih (I think), which was I guess a tribute to Vito’s brother and somehow them holding each other up when the other struggled; Di lead in ‘Woman’s Work’, which I adore; and ‘Back to Black’ with classy black & white images of Di & Vito apparently on a night out on the town, then bringing the dancing onto the stage.

In essence, these two are such an adorable, charming, fun, funny, talented, special and chemistry – in a friends or maybe cousins sense – couple of pro dancers providing an impressive show made even better with all the personal elements including of their support dancers.

RedHotReady – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2025