In darkest Marylebone a revolution is brewing. Within Theatre, the Slavic theatre company made up of professional actors with personal experience of life under autocratic rule, is using theatre to disseminate urgent political messages. Their latest musical play, the intriguingly entitled Boogie on the Bones, is an invitation into life in the Soviet Union during the 1950s, as experienced by a group of bright young things known as the Stilyagi, or ‘style hunters’. At this time, the production of culture was an important ideological weapon for the Communists. Those who sought out bootlegged Western art imperilled their allegiance to the enshrined social order and risked everything in a bid to maintain a residue of personal liberty.
Rebelliousness was, of course, a prerequisite for becoming a Stilyagi. Often it found expression under the cover of night, in neon-lit underground dance clubs, where clothes were gaudily bright and personally expressive, and the unsyncopated rhythms of jazz mirrored the beat of dissident ideas. Young people could fall recklessly in love and dream, if momentarily, of a life where their thoughts might be free. Such political restrictions engendered resourcefulness: the play’s title Boogie on the Bones refers to the illicit practice of pressing music records onto used reels of x-ray film, a process demonstrated with aplomb by the outwardly respectable citizen, Doctor Bob.
If the premise of Boogie on the Bones seems overly didactic, one never feels it due to the vitality of the cast, whose performances, while largely satiric and jovial, maintain a commitment to political seriousness. To the role of Doctor Bob Arseniy Cassidy brings an air of academic authority and assurance which masks his personal disaffection with the political regime. His patients are prescribed endless x-rays (an excuse to make more music record imprints), and dancing is touted as the cure to everything. Andrii Zamiatin is the rogue Komsomol soldier Mels who finds himself enticed to join the Stilyagi after flirting with an attractive member of the group. This coquette is Polly, played with charm and friskiness by Anastasia Aush, whose feigned ankle injury turns into a heated meet-cute. They are joined by Betsy and Fred (Vera Raskina and Max Taptygin, both excellent), who dazzle on the dancefloor and cherish dreams of eloping to America, the so-called land of the free. Even the militant Soviet, Katya, portrayed by an austere and critical Olga Pipchanka, dabbles in Stilyagi ways to win over the man she loves, only to swiftly renounce them when he rejects her.
What adds depth to this production is its cognisance of the way political ideas are formed by personal experience and how they play out when they come into contact with practical realities. Characters like Mels and Katya, while exhorting the doctrines of Marx, Engels, Lenin et alia, appear to do so out of cultural precedent; their personal investment in the pillars of thought that define the Communist regime is minimal. This might explain why Boogie on the Bones doesn’t analyse the political philosophy that lies behind the autocratic rule and the ease with which these characters abandon their convictions when they fall in love. Furthermore, for lovebirds Polly and Mels, despite living by the liberal creed—the belief that people can ‘live on dance, drink and dreams’—the realities of having a baby make them comprehend the importance of social and economic responsibilities. Freedom, this play contends, means something different in adulthood.
Brought together through entrancing tap dance, soulful live singing, and a list of needle drops that make you feel you’re in Ronnie Scott’s, Boogie on the Bones is an example of bold political messaging that uses art as a seductive weapon to help audiences imagine a counter-narrative of freedom and to prevent history from repeating itself. ‘The most beautiful things in life are dangerous or illegal,’ explains Doctor Bob. Within Theatre is making theatre that is dangerous in the best way, with political bite and one guiding principle – in art lies hope.
Boogie on the Bones ☆☆☆☆
By Daria Besedina
Director: Sofia Barysevich
Cast includes: Anastasia Aush; Arseniy Cassidy; Vera Raskina; Max Taptygin; Olga Pipchanka; Andrii Zamiatin.
Until: Sunday 7th December 2025
Running Time: 1 hour and 45 minutes
Review by Olivia Hurton