SHOCKED viewers blasted a "shambolic" rendition of Dirty Dancing at the Hexagon after an actor was walloped by a piece of scenery and the show was forced to freeze.

Guests were left dumbfounded after forking out up to £49.50 for tickets to Monday's show only to watch a series of gaffes live on stage.

The show first hit a bum-note when a piece of scenery depicting a building rotated off-cue and hit one of the actors, who were left staring at one another in disbelief.

Next a piece of scenery crashed down from the top of the set, and then the show curtains became jammed as stage directors tried to close them.

One audience member told the Chronicle: "A bit of scenery span round and knocked over one of the actors. He had his back to it so he didn't see it coming.

"Then they had to stop the entire show because it got jammed.

"Once they had fixed that the curtains got stuck."

The Chronicle understands that some guests have written to the Hexagon to complain about the show and a number of refunds have been issued.

The guest continued: "I thought it was part of the show at first.

"When the dancer got hit they all just stood still and looked at each other and then they all walked off. There was a message over the tannoy that said there was a technical issue with the show.

"It didn't hit him hard, but it was quite a shambolic."

Dirty Dancing, originally written by Eleanor Bergstein, is on show at the Hexagon until Saturday November 26.

A spokesman for production company Target-Live said: "At Monday night’s performance of Dirty Dancing at the Reading Hexagon, there was a brief issue with a communications device backstage, which led to the unfortunate incident of one of our cast coming into contact with a set piece during a set change.

"Due to the comms system failure, it was deemed sensible that the show be paused briefly for the safety of our actors until this could be rectified."