DIRECT from London’s West End, this is a pacy spectacular show now in its record-breaking 10th year, created to celebrate the 40-year career of American pop superstar Michael Jackson.

This wonderful show has toured in over 30 countries, entertaining more than three million people, and after touring the UK and Ireland since January, it’s now in Bournemouth.

It arrives with genuine West End production values – the sound is phenomenal, the dancing sensational, the lighting and overhead projections awesome, and the Pavilion stage has never seemed so imposing, impressive, and utterly dazzling.

The rich six-piece live band is magnificent, the lead and harmony vocals are brilliant, particularly excelling on the moving She’s Out Of My Life and the compelling Billie Jean.

Choreography is creative, dynamic, sexy and powerful, the male and female dancers skin-tight in their explosive precision.

Michael and the Jacksons’ material was often hooky polished pop music – from the early I Want You Back, ABC, and Rockin’ Robin, through the soulful I’ll Be There, Blame It On The Boogie, and Can You Feel It, to the sophisticated The Way You Make Me Feel, Man In The Mirror, and Smooth Criminal.

Michael Jackson’s later material is profound and thought-provoking – Earth Song and They Don’t Care About Us – although to compare Jackson’s humanitarian leanings with overhead projections of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Mother Theresa seems a tad hyperbolic.

Thriller Live runs until Saturday June 23.

Brendan McCusker