TONY Manero is in a rut. By day he works in a paint store and, like everyone else he knows, his wages barely last the week.

This is 1970s America, with an economy in tatters, and for the young people hanging out in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, the only escape is Saturday nights on the dance floor at the 2001 Odyssey nightclub.

But Tony wants more. He's sick of life at home with a bad-tempered father and a downtrodden mother, and when he meets Stephanie, an ambitious social-climber who can match him on the dance floor, he must decide whether to follow his own American Dream across Brooklyn Bridge, or stay put in a neighbourhood that offers him nothing more than a low paid job and the prospect of a loveless marriage.

Based on the 1977 film, in which a strutting John Travolta changed the face of dance, Saturday Night Fever is on the surface a funky disco musical about a bunch of kids gearing up for a dance contest. But, as the second act takes a darker turn, it reflects the frustrations of young people in blue-collar Brooklyn, and the solace they seek on the dance club scene of New York City.

It's all there in Bill Deamer's slick, high-energy choreography, with traces of West Side Story - sexual tension on the dance floor, gang rivalry on the streets, Tony's spiky dance partnership with Stephanie, and the demons he wrestles.

This is a terrific show, set to that timeless disco score, with Stayin' Alive, Jive Talkin', Night Fever, More Than a Woman, You Should Be Dancing, Disco Inferno, Nights on Broadway among the numbers performed by the excellent 'Bee Gees' - Drew Ferry, AJ Jenks and Oliver Thomson. The dazzling disco routines are beautifully performed by a fabulous young cast.

Jack Wilcox is superb as Tony; strutting round the dancefloor like he owns the place, with enough dazzling charm to light up Brooklyn Bridge, while struggling with an inner turmoil, so beautifully portrayed in the Immortality dance routine.

Excellent performances too from Rebekah Bryant as Stephanie, re-inventing herself as a Manhattan career girl; Harry Goodson-Bevan as tragic Bobby C, caught between a pregnant girlfriend, Catholic parents and the neighbourhood priest; Faizal Jaye as the brilliant DJ Monty and Billie Hardy as poor, spurned Annette.

A first-class show that had the audience on its feet. Disco Inferno!

* Runs at the Alhambra until Saturday.