Chinese catch Riverdance fever

With sequins and thundering steps, the flashy Irish sensation Riverdance arrives in China this week for what organisers say will be the biggest foreign production to come to a land where Western entertainment used to be denounced as subversive.

That is not all: It will be held on a massive stage in the Great Hall of the People – Beijing’s hulking communist meeting building where Mao Zedong once presided.