Valentine and Brown in 'Dirty Dancing'

Neighbours actress Kym Valentine and Sydney dancer Josef Brown are to star in the lead roles of the A$6.5 million ($7 million) stage production of the 1980s film Dirty Dancing.

Written by the film's creator Eleanor Bergstein, Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story On Stage will closely follow the movie's plot and popular soundtrack.

The story follows Frances "Baby" Houseman's holiday relationship with provocative dance instructor Johnny Castle.

Valentine will play Jennifer Grey's role as Baby Houseman.

Brown, who has been a member of the Australian Ballet and the Sydney Dance Company, has taken extra dance classes in the cha-cha and mambo to make sure he does justice to Patrick Swayze's hip movements, made famous in the film.

"I am a huge fan of the film," Brown said. "I was about 16 1/2 when I started classical dance and that was in 1986. This film came out in 1987 so this was a pretty seminal film to me as a dancer."