Grease - Eighteenth Performance (April 2010)

You can’t see Grease too many times. At least, I don’t think you can. But if you can I’ll probably find out sooner or later.

I got to sit in the front row which was an amazing experience. Sometimes the singers get so close to the stage, they’re almost on top of you. They’re all gorgeous though so it wouldn’t be a completely horrible experience if they did fall off the stage and land on top of me. One problem there though is that there’s quite a lot of smoke used in the production, some of it from actual cigarettes and some for special effects so I just had to try not to inhale when there was any of it onstage. I wonder what would happen if they had someone in the cast who had breathing problems like I do. Even if they did manage not to die, it would probably affect their singing.

There were lots of understudies at this performance but there were also some non-understudies whom I was seeing for the first time. Robin Cousins is the new guest star Teen Angel. I know him from Dancing on Ice and he’s also a former professional ice-skater and Olympic gold medallist so I was a bit surprised to find out he was in the show. You wouldn’t expect an ice-skater to be able to sing because ice-skating is so intensive, you wouldn’t have much time for anything else. But Robin sings really well. He’s got a really lovely voice and he sounds like a properly trained singer (and maybe he is, maybe he learned to sing after he’d retired from ice-skating). Robin will be with the show until June 19th so I should get to see him a few more times.

Matthew Goodgame was brilliant as Danny the last time I went but now I had the opportunity to see him as Kenickie for the first time. He acted and sang the role really well but in some ways I was quite disappointed because his Kenickie didn’t seem like a very nice person. He was all perverted and up himself. But that shows you how good Matthew’s acting is because his Danny was really lovely. It was like seeing a completely different person.

Michael Vinsen wasn’t there the last time I went so this was my first chance to see him as Eugene. I liked him. He’s a really happy geek. I really can’t imagine him as Vince/Teen Angel so I hope I’ll get to see him prove me wrong at some point. I think he’d be a lovely Doody though.

The only completely new (to me) understudy was Damien Poole. He covers Kenickie, Roger and Vince/Teen Angel so I think I’ve been quite unlucky not to see him before (although he is the second cover for Kenickie and until recently he was the second cover Vince/Teen Angel). But I got to see him as Vince at this performance. He wasn’t Angel of course because Robin was doing that but I hope I’ll get to see him in both roles one day because I really like him as Vince. He’s got a great singing voice and he also seems to enjoy all Vince’s DJ bits.

Noel Sullivan was back as Danny but Siobhan Dillon wasn’t there this time so Faye Brookes was Sandy. The first time I saw them together, they didn’t seem to have that much of an onstage connection – it might even have been the first time they’d performed together – but they’re great together now and they’ve completely solved the problem of Faye’s voice being ten times louder than anyone else’s. Noel is a surprisingly likeable Danny (well of course he is, he’s Welsh) and Faye is a lovely Sandy. Her top notes are really strong now too. They’re both really good singers but also their voices sound good together.

Rebecca Hodge played Rizzo again which means I still haven’t seen Victoria Hamilton-Barritt. Rebecca is great though. She’s a really moving performer and you can feel her emotions even more strongly when you’re in the front row. I would love to see her as Cha Cha sometime, firstly because of my whole understudy obsession but also because you don’t usually get to go deeply into Cha Cha’s emotions. So it will be very interesting to see if Rebecca can win Cha Cha some sympathy.

Holly Fletcher was the other understudy who performed. Luckily she was playing Patty, not Cha Cha so the show didn’t break down. Maybe she’s been reading my reviews (no, I don’t think she has really!) as she is making Patty nastier now. I like nice Pattys more than nasty Pattys because nice people are always nicer than nasty people, that’s what makes them nice. But if Patty’s nice, it’s more difficult to be on the Pink Ladies’ side when they’re mean to her. Holly is a great performer though. It’s great she’s the first cover for two roles but it would be lovely if she could start covering a bigger role. I think she’d be a really sweet Sandy or Frenchy.

Benjamin Ibbott and Alison Hefferon were Doody and Frenchy. Benjamin looks even sexier from the front row and Alison was very funny. Lucas Rush and Hayley Gallivan are working really well together as Roger and Jan. I especially liked Hayley’s performance in the penultimate scene - Jan really seemed upset about Rizzo. Bennett Andrews was also excellent in that scene. I love how he took his sunglasses off when he told Rizzo he’d be there if she needed to talk. It made him seem more genuine, like he wasn’t hiding behind his desire to be cool.

Robyn Mellor was Marty again. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this but I used to be really annoyed when Marty promises not to tell anyone Rizzo’s secret, only to blab to Kenickie three seconds later. But she doesn’t really promise. She says ‘I won’t say nothing’ and grammatically she’s not lying. She says she won’t say nothing and she doesn’t say nothing – she says something. But somehow I don’t think Marty is clever enough to know what she’s saying.

Kerry Winter and Stephanie Powell completed the cast as Miss Lynch and Cha Cha. Miss Lynch is still doing the announcement at the start of the show – I hope she keeps on doing it, it’s really funny but I wonder why she says ‘at this evening’s musical, the role of Sandy will be played by…’ instead of ‘at this evening’s performance’. Musical kind of implies they’re doing a different show every night and it might be more natural for a teacher to use the word performance if she was announcing cast changes in a school play. It doesn’t really matter though.

Stephanie was good as Cha Cha. I liked her before but she seems a bit more predatory now. I could see from the front row that her strapless dress actually has clear straps. I always wondered how that dress stayed up, Cha Cha really throws herself around the stage. Sandy’s sexy outfit doesn’t seem to have straps although it’s hard to tell as she didn’t get very close to me but she’s a lot more restrained in her movements so she’s less likely to end up having an embarrassing accident.