Tap Dogs, Grand Opera House, York, May 5 to 10

GOD bless Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, but Dein Perry had decided it was time to put the boot into tap dancing.

The Aussie created Tap Dogs, the show that applies the muscle power of workmen to the art of tap dancing, all with the aid of the big, heavy Australian Bluntstone boots.

Tap Dogs is still bashing boards across Britain, this week in Liverpool, next week in York at the Grand Opera House, where tour director and dance captain Jim Doubtfire will be leading the all-male troupe of six.

Jim, 32, is not an Aussie but an Englishman from Luton, and in his sixth year in Tap Dogs, you will find no bigger enthusiast of the show or Dein Perry's choreography. "The energy and the impact is amazing," he says. "It's brought tap dancing bang up to date because Dein is trying to get away from Fred and Ginger to bring it back to life, and that's why it's such a shock when you see it."

Tap Dogs had started with six guys from a steel town north of Sydney, each pretty much playing his own character in a "75-minute reinvention of tap for the new millennium", choreographed by Dein Perry and designed and directed by Nigel Triffitt to a score by Andrew Wilkie.

The show has not changed since its 1995 debut in Sydney, save for the occasional solo routine, with the touring troupe taking on the characters from the original show.

In Doubtfire's case that means playing 2IC (as in second in command) but in fact he has been first in command of the British touring production for more than four years, and he oversees the show retaining its character.

"It's still around 75 to 80 minutes with no stops and no interval, and it's so raw," says Jim. "I did Hot Shoe Shuffle before this, and the difference is that it's not light tapping but heavy dancing, right down into the floorboards.

"We tap in water, we tap up and down ladders, on scaffolding, upside down on the ceiling..."

Stop! Upside down on the ceiling? "Oh yes! I wear this harness, and the guys hold me up there on ropes, then turn me upside down. It's more Stunt Dogs than Tap Dogs," says Jim.

Each show, each dancer can smash as many as six sets of taps, and the steel-capped Bluntstone boots take such a pounding that it is common for the dancers to work their way through four or five pairs per tour.

Jim insists the back pains, the wear and tear to the knees and the fatigue are all worth it. "Dein Perry wanted to get away from Hot Shoe Shuffle tap. He wanted his show to be more raw, more sexy, completely different from any tap before - and it is," he says.

Tap Dogs, Grand Opera House, York, May 5 to 10. Performances: 8pm, Monday to Thursday; 6pm, Friday; 5pm and 8pm, Saturday. Tickets: £9.50 to £19.50 on 01904 671818.

Updated: 11:04 Friday, May 02, 2003