[sanderling]

With Dreamboats and Petticoats being wedged into the Savoy prior to Legally Blonde, I thought I'd say what I thought of it yesterday at the (spectacular) Leeds Grand.

Well... if you hate Grease, this isn't going to be for you either - even though the songs are better. It's named after the eponymous 60s compilation album, and the script is devised to shoe-horn as many numbers into the plot as possible. 15 year old swot Laura wants to be Bobby's girl - but he's got the hots for Sue, who gives him the runaround so that when he tells Laura he loves her, it's too late because hunky Norman's giving her the eye. As soon as someone gets a shiver down the backbone, it's a cue for Shakin All Over and nobody can ever feel lonely or blue without Roy Orbison kicking in....

Yes, I know... but, honest, the cast is just so infectiously enthusiastic, the music and dancing so ..err... also infectiously enthusiastic, that you can't help coming out afterwards with a warm glow. Well, I couldn't... but then I'm old enough to get all the jokes about girls worrying over what their mums would say about laddering a pair of stockings that cost 3/6d from British Home Stores, at a time when teen sex was still scary and shrouded with dire warnings about not forgetting to take a 'buy me and stop one' from the barber's - or else!

Bill Kenwright evidently loves this stuff... and he's made sure the music's right with a cracking 5 piece backing band supplemented by a couple of honking saxes (credit to Sophie Byrne on tenor for nailing her rasping solos spot on) who also double effectively as ensemble. Special nod to Jennifer Biddall and Ben Freeman for their respective roles as vamp and hunk. Scott Bruton didn't quite do it for me as drippy Bobby and newcomer Daisy Wood-Davies as the ingenue will go far if she keeps this promise going. Stand out performance, for me, was Emma Hatton as Donna (yes, they sing that one too)... with a great gutsy mezzo voice, lovely dancer and a presence that lights the stage up. If she can act as well (with all due respect, her lines didn't exactly require her to run the whole gamut) she too should soon be seen in greater things.

So I dunno... maybe you had to be there at the time to get the most from it - as most in the packed and wildly excited Leeds matinee audience clearly had. It's an affectionate British look at the way we like to think things were and there are many worse ways I can think of to spend an afternoon ... including some on show in the West End at present.

A *** plus rating, but I'd like to give it foive cause I enjoyed it so.

[Dawnstar]

Stand out performance, for me, was Emma Hatton as Donna (yes, they sing that one too)... with a great gutsy mezzo voice, lovely dancer and a presence that lights the stage up. If she can act as well (with all due respect, her lines didn't exactly require her to run the whole gamut) she too should soon be seen in greater things.

I didn't realise Emma Hatton was in this, I might have to go just to see her. I saw her in When Midnight Strikes at the Finborough two years ago - I think it was her professional debut - and have been hoping since that she'd pop up in something else as she really impressed me in that.

[Mark_E]

See this in Sunderland next week just before it goes into the Savoy. Looking forward to it

[RH1234]

I don't think the transfer is selling very well at the moment. I wonder whether it will go on for as long as planned.

[HappyGoLucky]

I ended up really enjoying this when it was on at my work a few months ago, it surprised me!

[annette]

i saw this a couple months ago in birmingham, really enjoyed it, its one mum wanted to see as its here era, but it surprised me i really enjoyed it, good cast, great music, and not bad sets at all for this type, is it the origional cast that are going into london??

[curzon]

I don't think the transfer is selling very well at the moment. I wonder whether it will go on for as long as planned.

It didn't sell here either (Wycombe)

[Mark_E]

Saw this tonight in Sunderland, was PACKED (Although first night is half price night). Audience LOVED IT!

Try and catch it if you can!

[sanderling]

It doesn’t have anything new to say. Another ‘musical’ using a concept that has been used for the last 25 years or so.

No stunt casting, wow cast or set. Why would this sell We need something new and I doubt this or Too close to the sun is going to give us it

"We" might need something new... but are there enough of "us" for producers to abandon the tried and trusted formula and sink enough money into taking a chance on different material by 'unknowns'. Emma Hatton, for instance, one of the leads in Dreamboats, was in a well-received production of When Midnight Strikes at the little Finborough a couple of years ago. Despite its good reviews, it never transferred - presumably on the grounds of perceived lack of commercial appeal rather than any shortcomings of its own.

For as long as people like Bill Kenwright are putting up their own money on the success or failure of their businesses, we're going to get shows with mass appeal. And before you start knocking him and his business model.... ask yourselves why, in a free economy, nobody else is prepared to try staging the artistically challenging stuff on a national basis.

Anyway.... maybe its a North/South thing... Leeds and Sunderland bopping in the aisles to it whilst the snooty Home Counties are turning their noses up at having a good time in public.