Grease - Seventeenth Performance

March 2010 performance

There’s been a new cast at Grease for nearly a month now but I haven’t been because I’m scared of one of the guys at the box office. But he wasn’t there this time so it was okay. There was a nice man there instead. There were nice men all over London last night. Even the guy who thought I was a popstar was nice. Probably a bit drunk, he thought I was black and I don’t even have a tan. But he was nice.

I think there’s a bit of a curse thing going on at Grease. Every time I go to see it and Holly Fletcher is on as Cha Cha, there’s a technical hitch. Last time they had to cancel the whole second act. This time they just lowered the curtain while they sorted a few things out. But it was still a technical hitch and Holly was Cha Cha and I was there. So it’s probably a good idea if I don’t ask her out. If we’re in the theatre, we just get a technical hitch but if we go anywhere else the whole world could end. Oh well, I’m probably not her type anyway.

Holly is a great Cha Cha though. As with her Patty, maybe she is a little bit too nice but that doesn’t stop her from being scary and sexy. She’s an amazing, effortless dancer, even her hand jiving looks elegant and graceful.

Noel Sullivan (Danny) was ill and new cast members Victoria Hamilton-Barritt (Rizzo), Michael Vinsen (Eugene) and Stephanie Powell (Cha Cha) were also off. And I think ensemble member Daniel Ioannou wasn’t there either. He’s the first Eugene cover but he didn’t perform Eugene and there were only three ensemble boys so he can’t have been there.

I’ve always wondered about how the understudy system works. The actor playing Kenickie always seems to cover Danny, Sonny always seems to cover Kenickie, Frenchy always seems to cover Sandy, Eugene always seems to cover Doody and Miss Lynch always seems to cover Jan.

But for the others, there are slight similarities in the roles they play but if you replace one singer in a main role, it doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to cover the same roles as your predecessor did. The current Marty, Robyn Mellor, is the second Sandy cover but her predecessor Emma Stephens didn’t cover Sandy. When she first joined the show, there were probably two people covering Sandy already (probably whoever was playing Frenchy and Charlotte Bull). Emma did audition to cover Sandy but that was after she’d been playing Marty for a while and both the first and second Sandy covers were leaving. So it’s like being ‘second Sandy cover’ is a role in its own right, and not part of being Marty. (Of course, Emma didn’t get to be a Sandy cover. She got the role of Sandy instead.)

A couple of the old cast members have taken on new roles as covers. Niamh Bracken remains as the first Marty cover and the second Miss Lynch cover but she’s now also the second Rizzo cover. James Marshall is still the first Sonny cover but he’s also the second Roger cover. I really hope I get the chance to see them in their new roles.

Matthew Goodgame is the new Kenickie but with Noel off, he took the role of Danny. Now, if you’ve read any of my other blogs (in which case I love you) you’ll know that I don’t really like Danny as a person. He’s just not my type. The old Danny cover, Stuart Ramsay, was really funny and I really enjoyed Noel’s performance last time I saw him but I still wouldn’t really want to go out with their Dannys. Given the choice of the T-Birds (and it does crack me up that the cool guys call themselves birds), I would have choosen Doody, Roger or Eugene every time. Or maybe Doody, Roger and Eugene.

But I adored Matthew as Danny. He’s funny like Stuart (he does the burp and the squeaky voice and everything), he has a really gorgeous voice and there was something really lovely and likeable about him. He said all Danny’s horrible lines which usually piss me off so badly but they didn’t seem nearly as bad when Matthew says them. He had a strong stage presence too. Really magnetic.

He’s also great in a crisis. During the technical hitch, he tried to keep the performance going while the backstage crew sorted it out. He called after Sandy one more time. He sat there in Kenickie’s car and did a bit of miming, in character the whole time. I actually thought he’d added some extra bits to the role until some of the stage crew came onstage to wheel him and the car away (I think they needed to move the car to bring the curtain down). As the car was wheeled away, he started to sing ‘Sandy’ quite softly without accompaniment. It was great.

Then when the performance restarted, he sang the first line again (‘stranded at the drive-in’) and made a face as he said it and he got a big laugh as the audience recognised he literally had been stranded. He got a short applause too but then everyone shut up and let him get on with singing the song, which he did brilliantly.

Toby Anstis was the special guest star playing Vince/Teen Angel. I was a bit confused about which roles he was going to play because the programme just says he’s singing Teen Angel. Vince isn’t in the programme at all except in the list of songs but Toby sang both roles. Jason Capewell is the usual Vince/Teen Angel but I think he’s been directing a production in South Africa so Toby took over both his roles. But then there was an announcement that Jason, who is only in the current programme as resident director, was going to play the role of Johnny Casino, who isn’t mentioned in the programme at all. Johnny used to sing at the dance contest but for this production they’ve got rid of his role and given his song to Vince instead. It says in the list of songs that it’s sung by Vince.

Except in this performance, Johnny Casino was back. So probably what happened is Jason came back from South Africa and decided he wanted one of his songs back I wish I could do things like that, just show up and take any role I wanted. I wouldn’t want to be Vince/Teen Angel/Johnny Casino, I’d rather be Frenchy or Rizzo but I do think I’d look good in Teen Angel’s silver foil (which Tiby actually didn't wear).

Toby and Jason both did well. Toby isn’t really a singer although he has a nice voice and it didn’t sound horrible or anything. He just sounds like he’s not a proper trained experienced singer which he probably isn’t. So he might have been quite glad for Jason to take one of his songs and give his voice a rest. Toby also struggled a bit with Vince’s DJ stuff. Toby is a DJ himself but it must actually be easier for an actor to play the role of a DJ than for a DJ to pretend to be a different DJ and speak in a different accent. But I liked Toby’s performance because as both Vince and Teen Angel, he came across as a really likeable guy

Jason did really well as Johnny Casino. He can’t have been singing the role when he was in South Africa or wherever he was but I suppose one of the Vince/Teen Angel understudies might have done the Johnny Casino bit if Toby couldn’t. The Johnny song is very low-lying and you have to sing in quite a bluesy jazzy style so I bet there are loads of singers who do a great Teen Angel but couldn’t manage ‘Born to Hand Jive’. Not everyone could do bass and counter tenor eight times a week like Jason.

Neither Toby nor Jason did the understudy announcement at the beginning of the show – Miss Lynch did it again. Kerry Winter is playing Miss Lynch now and she did a great job. I definitely prefer Miss Lynch making the announcement as she says all the understudy names slowly and clearly and it’s really funny being told off by a scary teacher. She also said we’d get detention if we left our mobile phones on (which I actually did but it was on silent).

Lucas Rush is the new Roger and I love him. The last two Rogers – Kristofer Harding and Michael Melmoe – were both brilliant but so different. Lucas isn’t like either of them. He’s loud and rowdy but there’s still something very sweet and gentle about him. He worked really well with Hayley Gallivan, the new Jan. Hayley is an extra-loud and bolshy Jan and I love how she dances. Every step looks perfect but she manages to make herself look clumsy and unco-ordinated, which does make sense as Jan is supposed to be fat.

Susannah Allman plays Patty. I like Patty as a blonde as she’s so much the perky blonde cheerleader type and Susannah played up to the stereotype really well. Second cover Jon Reynolds was Eugene. He’s not quite as inventive as some of the other Eugenes I’ve seen but everything he has to do, he does really well. And he made sure we got a good view of his pants, which is one of my favourite parts of the show.

As Matthew was Danny, Bennett Andrews was Kenickie and James Marshall was Sonny. I’ve seen them before loads of times. In fact, although they’re only the covers for that role, I’ve seen Bennett more times than any other Kenickie and James more times than any other Sonny. But anyway, I’ve got lots to say about the rest of the cast so I’ll just say they were both really good, as they always are.

I saw Siobhan Dillon as Sandy for the second time. I really loved her the first time because she was so completely different from any other Sandy I’ve seen. Her Sandy is very confident and it works. She’s also funny. I did enjoy her performance very much this time and she is an amazing singer and her final transformation is more believable when you’ve already seen her wiggling her bottom at Danny. But there are definitely also advantages when you have a really shy and vulnerable Sandy.

Rebecca Hodge played Rizzo. She gave a really lovely, relaxed performance and I loved how after she made a bitchy comment, she often did a really nice smile as though to say she was just teasing. I loved how she sang ‘Sandra Dee’ too. There was a nice balance between the amazing ways she can use her voice and just showing what a lovely voice she has.

Benjamin Ibbott also sounded and looked great as Doody and it was great to see Faye Brookes as Frenchy for only the fourth time (the third time all the way through). Robyn Mellor is one of the few singers who have been there every time I’ve been to see them. And I’m completely happy with that. I just hope she won’t be playing Marty every time, I want to see her as Sandy.

There are four new ensemble members, all of them male. Kevin Archbold is the new Assistant Dance Captain but he’s not covering any roles. Craig Tyler is the second cover for Doody and Sonny so I might never see him in a main role either. Daniel Ioannou and Jon Reynolds are the two Eugene covers as I said.

The two make ensemble members who didn’t leave are James Marshall (who was Sonny at this performance) and Damien Poole, who is now the first cover for Vince/Teen Angel instead of the second cover. He’s still first Roger cover and second Kenickie cover so I hope I’ll get to see him in at least one of his roles. The other two Rogers were both really healthy whenever I went but Lucas wrote a really sweet blog about hurting his shoulder,so maybe he's not quite as healthy as Kristofer and Michael. Not that I want anyone to hurt their shoulder, it hurts. And I'll miss Lucas if he's not there.

Niamh Bracken, Charlotte Bull, Holly Fletcher, Alison Hefferon, Rebecca Hodge and Sophie Zucchini are all still in the female emsemble although Rebecca was playing Rizzo of course and Holly only joined in the ensembles when she didn’t need to be in her Cha Cha costume,

It was especially good to see Alison in the ensemble as I think I’ve only seen her in the ensemble once before. And Sophie deserves a special mention because right at the end of the show, they all freeze for maybe twenty seconds of the applause and Sophie froze with her leg sticking up next to her ear. And she kept smiling. I can get my leg up by my ear but only when it’s bent and it does hurt, Sophie had her leg straight and it looks like it didn’t hurt at all.