Say the words Saturday Night Fever and pretty much everyone conjures up John Travolta sashaying in a blazing white flared suit on a rainbow flashing dancefloor, gesticulating to the Bee Gees’ high-pitched vocals.
No wonder. It’s an iconic moment, set to a stellar soundtrack that remains one of the best-selling of all time, bested only by Whitney Houston and co on The Bodyguard.
The Bee Gees deliver the mighty ‘Stayin’ Alive’, ‘How Deep Is Your Love’, ‘More Than a Woman’, ‘You Should Be Dancing’, ‘Jive Talking’ – in a scene cut from the final film, but present on the album – and title track ‘Night Fever’. They’re joined by the likes of Yvonne Elliman’s ‘If I Can’t Have You’, penned by the Bee Gees, and Kool and the Gang’s ‘Open Sesame’ on a smash-hit that’s all thriller, no filler.
Fewer folks will recall, however, the bleaker elements of John Badham’s classic 1977 movie. With a screenplay by Norman Wexler, adapted from a feature by music journalist Nik Cohn, it’s set in a New York City on its knees financially, experiencing a poverty-pinched crime spike. A story of working class unrest, as the have-nots dare to dream, it shares many plot points with West Side Story.
Featuring racially and misogynistically motivated violence, gang fights, suicide, abortion and assault in the original cut, later reissued in a toned-down to parental guidance version, Saturday Night Fever is not all disco spills and chill.
So what are you getting yourself into here with Saturday Night Fever?
Drew Anthony Creative’s new production of Nan Knighton, Arlene Phillips, Paul Nicholas and Robert Stigwood’s 1998 jukebox musical, presented at Melbourne’s Athenaeum Theatre, leans into musical magnificence set to a funky beat far more than it acknowledges and embraces the darkness beyond the 2001 Odyssey club’s bright lights.
Directed snappily by Drew Anthony, with musical direction by Daniel Puckey, Saturday Night Fever is set to toe-tapping choreography by Suzi and Jamie Rolton.
Who’s who in Saturday Night Fever?
Perth-based performer Ethan Churchill plays Travolta’s Tony Manero, the Bay Ridge-based, 20-year-old Italian-American who wishes to become a Manhattan club kid while flogging paint at a local hardware store.
At home, his deadbeat dad (comedian George Kapiniaris) is too busy drinking while trading blows both physical and psychological with his son, wife (cabaret star Chelsea Plumley) and daughter (emerging actors Amileya Moro and Charis Morabito sharing the role).
Tony may be a dreamer, but he’s no stand-up lad. He discards an excellent Izzi Green’s hopelessly devoted dance partner, Annette, in favour of head-turner Stephanie (an also ace Regan Barber). The latter may be more gifted on the floor, but he also pesters her for so much more, though the musical fudges just how grim that subplot gets.
Just as it does the monstrous actions of his buddies, Double J (Dimitri Raptis) and Joey (Ewan Herdman), whose violence isn’t limited to racially motivated street fighting with Puerto Rican gang, the Barracudas, in the original film.
Saturday Night Fever, the musical, does allow space for the tragedy of Bobby C (Sam Hamilton), a much nicer guy who is emotionally tortured by his Catholic parents and those of the girlfriend he inadvertently gets pregnant.
Bobby C’s entreaties for moral support from his mates go mostly ignored, with Tony’s brother, recently former priest Frank Jr (a largely overlooked Matthew Casamento), noting that the Pope is unlikely to grant Bobby and his girl special dispensation for an abortion.
Is Saturday Night Fever worth seeing?
If the anachronistic use of the Bee Gees banger ‘Tragedy’ – released two years after the film – is a little on the nose for Bobby’s Brooklyn Bridge-set fate, then it doesn’t detract from the fact that Hamilton gives his all.
He’s so good at conveying the spiral that follows that he all but eclipses Churchill, who, despite being garlanded with awards for the role, isn’t up to scratch, vocally, as Tony. Churchill’s underpowered performance is the surprisingly weak link of this production, not helped by multiple mic failures on opening night. But there’s no getting around that he just doesn’t radiate Travolta’s megawatt charisma in a complicated, antiheroic role dumbed down here in favour of near-non-stop dance-offs.
Green and Barber likewise outflank Churchill. However, Drew Anthony and Jason Bovaird’s lackadaisical lighting design regularly leaves the dancers lingering in shadow when they should be aglow. Thalia Osegueda Santos, Clara Harrison and Bianca Baykara’s club-singing chorus also impress.
While I’ll always favour a real set over digital backdrops, the production’s preference for the latter at least looks impressive enough, allowing scenes to change rapidly enough to keep up with Saturday Night Fever’s frenetic pace, which clearly favours pop over plot.
Last word?
If you just want to bop in your seat, there’s a great night out to be had in this lightly sketched Brooklyn drama that sweeps the guts of the story to one side in favour of swing-a-long fun, delivering exactly what you paid for.
Saturday Night Fever is on now at the Athenaeum Theatre until January 25, 2026. You can purchase tickets via the website.
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