Grease - First Performance (July 2008 approx)

My friend/ex wrote this but it was the first time I went so I thought I'd include it.


I wouldn’t normally go and see this but my girlfriend wanted to go because she’s going to be in it She was really worried about going because when she went to Opera Holland Park these b*ds started taking the piss out of her which is just so totally not on and I don’t just mean people in the audience, I mean staff. I think that’s well unprofessional and like totally out of order too. Sophie’s got learning disabilities so she can seem a bit weird sometimes but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to make fun of her. It’s not like she talks during the opera, she never does that. She usually only talks when she’s telling me to shut up. We were supposed to go out Saturday night but we couldn’t because Sophie was still upset about OHP. I’m not going there again in a hurry, I’ve sold all my tickets now. Brilliant opera productions and everything but I’m not putting up with people like that.

The staff at the Piccadilly Theatre were nice. They were really patient when Sophie was trying to choose a seat and they didn’t shout at her when she went somewhere she wasn’t allowed by accident (she’s not stupid or nothing, she’s got enough A Levels to get 3 people into uni but she’s well ditzy) and they didn’t even tell her off when one of their machines went wrong, it wasn’t Sophie’s fault obviously but you’d be shocked how many people do that.

So yeah Grease isn’t usually my sort of thing but it was really cool. The singer playing Danny (who really was called Danny, Danny Bayne) won some reality TV contest called Grease is the Word but he was off sick so the singer who was supposed to be Kenickie sang Danny which meant the singer who was usually Sonny had to sing Kenickie and the singer who was usually Johnny had to sing Sonny (I think Johnny’s just chorus so they could do it without him). That must have been well confusing especially as the first Kenickie cover is also the second cover for Danny and all the boys were dressed alike so when Rizzo (that’s one of the girls) has to come in and go over to Kenickie she must have been like hang on a minute, who’s my bloke tonight? She is a bit of a slut though so they could have improvised round it if she had got confused.

You don’t get things like that happening in opera. Like in Figaro Barbarina is usually covering Susanna but you’d never get Barbarina covering Cherubino and Cherubino covering Susanna. Yeah I know Cherubino’s a mezzo part but there are loads of sopranos who sing him anyway like Amy ‘nice bum’ Freston, she’s sung Barbarina too and she probably will sing Susanna one day because she’s ideal for the role, really funny and sexy. I suppose if Figaro was a musical you might even have Barbarina covering Cherubino who’s covering the Countess who’s covering Susanna because from listening to recordings and stuff they don’t always seem that fussed about timbre, you get light-voiced Sandys and heavy-voiced Sandys. I reckon it would be a good thing in a way if voice types weren’t associated so much with particular roles. I was listening to Kishani Jayasinghe singing Barbarina on the radio, she’s also covering Susanna and she’s such a great singer, she’s well sexy and funny and in theory she’d be brilliant at comic Mozart roles but because we expect little soubrettes and she’s got quite a big voice she just sounded just like so weird as Barbarina, just totally wrong even though she sang it really well.

Most of the singing in Grease was good. Stuart Ramsay who took over as Danny seemed a bit nervous at first but he soon settled into it and he ended up being really funny. Danny’s a bit of a tosser if you think about it but Stuart made sure he wasn’t a total loser.

Nicola Brazil sang Sandy, the girl who won the role in Grease is the Word has already pissed off somewhere or other. Nicola is well hot but to be honest I thought she looked better before she got that dodgy perm. Good outfit in the final scene though. Sophie says Nicola’s boobs looked funny in that outfit but I wasn’t looking obviously. I thought they looked fine though.

But everyone always goes on about Sandy being a good girl but she’s so not a good girl, she’s got a serious anger problem. She shoves Rizzo just because Rizzo gives her the finger, yeah Rizzo was being a bit annoying and immature but I reckon shoving someone is worse than just sticking your finger up. Then Sandy pushes Patty over just because Patty’s better at cheerleading than she is. You can get excluded for doing less than that. So yeah Sandy’s a stupid aggressive cow but Nicola’s a great singer even though I couldn’t hear her at the end because she was trying to sing into her microphone and cuddle up to Danny and it’s really difficult to do both, not that I’ve ever snuggled up to Danny. Danni maybe but not Danny.

There were only 2 people in the cast I’d heard of, one of them was Ray Quinn who came second in The X Factor when Leona won. Seriously major respect to him for taking a supporting role. A lot of people like him start out cool but then they get so sucked into the celebrity world they end up getting really up themselves and they wouldn’t even consider singing any role in Grease except Sandy or Danny. But Ray just looks like he’s having a brilliant time singing Doody who’s probably only like the 5th most important character, if that. He was one of the best singers there, he’s a brilliant actor (he’s won awards for acting, only for being in a soap but still an award) and he can really dance too. Sophie and our gay mate were just like dribbling, I was more laid back obviously but I was quite impressed in a totally non-sexual way.

Bennett Andrews was the Kenickie cover, he’s the really tough one with a crap car. Great singer and he seemed totally comfortable in the role. Natalie Langston (who was Rizzo, that’s the role Sophie wants) has a really powerful contralto type voice, really sexy but even though she did the cool and aloof stuff really well I reckon it would have been possible to make Rizzo more likeable.

The second person I’d heard of was Tyman Boatwright (got to be a stage name) who was the Sonny understudy. He was good, I know him from On the Town at the ENO. Then there was one more understudy, Selina Hamilton as Cha Cha the dancer who picks her nose and flashes her bits. She and Stuart Ramsay danced really well together but it looked a bit like they hadn’t practised together much, there were a few moments when I was thinking like oh sh**, he’s going to drop her! Eugene the geek really did drop Patty the cheerleader but I think he was supposed to.

Benjamin Ibbott was really good as Eugene. There was something about the way he did his moves, he looked like he was getting the dance right but somehow he was moving in a really geeky way. Kristofer Harding who was Roger was really funny when he sang his Mooning song. Jason Capewell really got on my nerves as Vince and Teen Angel but they’re both annoying characters.

Emily Bull who sang Frenchy (that’s the role Sophie wants if she can’t be Rizzo) was hot and just a really nice girl. She didn’t do a lot of singing but she’s a great actress. Laura Wilson (Jan) wasn’t the best singer there but she kind of sang how I expect Jan would sing if that makes sense. Emma Stephens (Marty) and Emma Green (Patty) were these well hot blondes and even Chloe Brooks as the teacher Miss Lynch was quite sexy, bit intimidating though.

Grease is actually quite well put-together. It has a lot of storylines in it and it seems to take place over a couple of months or something but it really moved from one scene to another really easily and you always got what was going on and the writers really manage to put a lot of info across in quite short scenes. And it’s quite short, most operas are quite a bit longer I think.

The only thing I don’t like about Grease is that some of the ideas are a bit off. I don’t like the idea that Sandy had to change herself into a slut so she could go out with the guy she liked and be friends with the people she wanted to be friends with. Maybe it’s realistic but that’s so not how it should be. It’s also total crap that the musical seems to be saying if you’re in a relationship you have to have sex with each other, that’s so not true, you do it when you’re both ready which okay TOTALLY sucks but you just have to deal with that. I reckon a major musical like Grease should be helping people to feel it’s okay to be yourself instead of one of the crowd if that’s what you want but it doesn’t really do that. Really great evening out though.