Grease - Nineteenth Performance (May 2010)

I picked the right night to come to Grease. No fewer than five understudies were performing, including three I’d never seen before. In addition, I finally got to see a member of the new cast for the first time.

Bennett Andrews was on as Danny! I love him as Sonny and Kenickie but I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to see him as Danny because the only way that can happen is if Noel Sullivan and Matthew Goodgame are both off. Which in a way isn’t something I really want to happen because I don’t want anyone to be ill. But maybe they were both on holiday or something.

Bennett was really lovely. He might even be my favourite Danny ever but he does have some competition. I really like how he played Danny. He was quite annoying at times (that’s not his fault, that’s how the character is written) but then every so often he’d just smile and it was one of the most disarming smiles I’ve ever seen. And then you can see why all the girls are in love with him, why the boys want to be like him, and why he gets away with murder. He was funny and loveable and he looked great in his gym shorts… what else does a Danny need?

Well he does need to be able to sing and Bennett can. He sounds like a real bass when he’s singing Kenickie and Sonny but he’s got all the high notes too and they sound great. His high notes aren’t quite as beautiful as his low notes, when Danny does have a low note Bennett sings it with this lovely warm burnished sound and you just think wow, he doesn’t have quite the same timbre on his high notes but it’s still a really nice voice.

As Matthew Goodgame wasn’t there and Bennett was sinigng Danny, it meant I had no choice but to see the second cover Kenickie too which I really really really didn’t mind. Damien Poole is the second cover Kenickie. I saw him as Vince the last time I came to Grease (he replaced Jason Capewell whom I’ve heard was delayed by the volcano) and I thought he was great but I did kind of wonder if he really looked young enough to play the other roles he was covering, Kenickie and Roger. As Vince, Damien looked old enough to be completely unconvincing when he tried to tell Marty he left high school last year.

But he didn’t look too old at all. He made a great high school boy and again his singing was brilliant. He has a huge range and a really flexible voice too, which he really showed off in Greased Lightnin’. He didn’t go into the character as deeply as some actors have done but he more than gave an impression of what Kenickie was like. The parts where his acting really stood out were the bits where he had nothing to say and was just in the background, like in the penultimate scene where he and Rizzo are arguing as the others are dancing and singing.

When Bennett is playing Danny, you will always see the second cover Kenickie but Bennett’s main role, Sonny, can still be played by the first cover Sonny, James Marshall. But James was off too so the second cover Sonny, Craig Tyler replaced him. Craig is also the second cover Doody which is a bit hard to imagine but I supposed that’s why they’re called actors. He was good as Sonny. He didn’t sing all Sonny’s low notes in Rock ‘n’ Roll Party Queen but that didn’t matter. He was so involved in the action, he didn’t need to sing too. In a way, it would have been wrong for him to sing because he was clearly much more interested in Marty than in singing with the others. He and Robyn Mellor (Marty) worked really well together.

But with Bennett as Danny, Craig as Sonny and James not there, it did leave the production a bit short of men. Kevin Archbold, Daniel Ionnau and Jon Reynolds were the only three men who weren’t playing a main role so they must have really been hoping nothing happened to anyone else as they only know one role between them (Daniel is first cover Eugene, Jon is second cover, Kevin doesn’t cover any roles). Except actually, one of them wasn’t there so there were only two men in the ensemble. I’m not sure which one wasn’t there but I think maybe it was Kevin. But whoever it was, it left them a bit short of men at the prom. The two remaining ensemble members danced with Rebecca Hodge and Sophie Zucchini which meant Niamh Bracken and Holly Fletcher had to go without (Charlotte Bull wasn’t there, or at least wasn’t performing, perhaps because the high school was overpopulated with girls as it was). Miss Lynch had stated quite clearly that all couples must be boy-girl so they couldn’t dance with each other.

They did manage to bring three male dancers on for Greased Lightnin’ but I think one of them was Michael Vinsen, who plays Eugene. I think the actor playing Eugene often, if not always, takes part in that scene. It’s nice when actors get to perform more than one role, like Jason Capewell when he’s playing Teen Angel as well as Vince, and Stephanie Marshall, who plays a Rydell High schoolgirl before appearing as Cha Cha in the second act. If an actor plays two completely different roles really well, you can see that they’re not only good but versatile too. So Michael gets to be sexy and co-ordinated, Stephanie gets to be demure and a nice person, Jason gets to be really camp and undo his shirt buttons. One of the reasons I like to see understudies is seeing the same actors in different roles. And I get to see that with these roles too.

They were also short of men for the final number, ‘You’re the One that I Want’. Again, only two ensemble girls could dance with a main partner. Interestingly, Sophie didn’t have a partner anymore. One of the ensemble boys was dancing with Rebecca again but the other was with either Niamh or Holly, I think Holly. Poor Cherie Loren (that’s Sophie’s character name) but it does give Grease an extra subplot. All the main couples in the musical have their own story of how they get together and they’re all different. But none of the main couples have a story where someone starts off with one person, then decides they like another person better (unless you count Danny taking Rizzo to the dance, Kenickie taking Cha Cha and Danny dancing with Cha Cha but I don’t think they actually liked each other in that way, they were just trying to prove a point). I wonder if the ensemble characters swap partners in every performance.

Maybe Cherie Loren got dumped because her boyfriend wasn’t happy with her behaviour at the prom. Sophie has started reacting in different ways when Miss Lynch disqualifies her from the competition. The time before last, she actually left the stage in a strop and I don’t think she came back for the rest of the scene. This time, she gave Miss Lynch the finger.

I did get to see one other performer for the first time. Victoria Hamilton-Barritt is the new Rizzo but she wasn’t there the last two times I saw Grease. I don’t want to be mean about her but I didn’t really enjoy her performance. She was funny, she has great comic timing and it was interesting to see the role played in a completely different way. She did give a real sense that Rizzo was playing a role in a way, that her sarcastic exterior was just a screen for a more vulnerable person underneath – there was something a bit contrived about her and I don’t think that’s necessarily wrong for the character. But I was just waiting for the moment at the end where we see the real Rizzo and she didn’t show this in a way that I was able to understand. I hope I’ll change my mind. There have been a few other performers I haven’t liked the first time but I do like them now. Maybe it’s just the shock of seeing such a different interpretation of the role.

The other two understudies were Faye Brookes, who was Sandy, and Alison Hefferon, who replaced her as Frenchy. If I see Alison one more time, I’ll have seen her more times than any other Frenchy. She was someone I wasn’t as sure of at first because I saw Frenchy as being a silly but quite gentle and sweet character. There was variation: Lucie Downer was shy and stammery, a bit like a female version of Doody whereas Emily Bull was far sexier and more sure of herself but in an almost unconscious way and Faye Brookes is excitably sweet. Alison’s Frenchy is much wilder and a bit mad and it didn’t seem right at first but now I really like her. She’s really funny and I can’t quite imagine her as a beautician which is part of what I love about her. I think I’d have a great time if she gave me a makeover and I hate makeovers, they’re boring. I might not be so keen on the result but I’m sure I’d enjoy it while I was there.

Faye was lovely as Sandy. Her interpretation of the role has changed a bit. She’s quite funny, so perhaps she’s been slightly influenced by Siobhan Dillon, the main Sandy. It seems completely natural and she hasn’t lost the goodness and wholesomeness that is such a big part of Sandy’s character, in particular her interpretation of it. Amazing voice too and it was hilarious at the end when she was trying to get Robin Cousins off the stage. He was hanging around, stealing her limelight and she was shooing him away! They really looked like they were having fun.

Robin was great as Teen Angel. He’s somehow not a bit camp which is quite surprising for a male ice-skater, especially one who sings falsetto, and he’s got such a lovely voice. It’s a shame he’s leaving in June but maybe he’ll join a different show. I’ll go and see him even if he’s in Wicked!!

It was also really good to see Susannah Allman as Patty again – it was only the second time I’d seen her. But I still don’t think Sandy should have thrown the pom-pom at her on purpose. Susannah is wonderfully annoying so you can kind of understand Sandy’s feelings, but throwing missiles, even soft fluffy ones - and ruining an entire cheerleading routine in front of a photographer - just isn’t very nice. And they probably aren’t that soft and fluffy. Sophie Zucchini does manage to knock Sandy over with one. And as Sophie does lose her wide cheerleader smile for a minute, that probably was an accident.

I finally worked out why Miss Lynch (Kerry Winter) is so annoyed with Doody (Benjamin Ibbott) at the prom. He was doing pelvic thrusts. I must have been looking at his face or something like that. I also worked out (I’m a bit slow) why Jan (Hayley Gallivan) lies down on the floor while Roger (Lucas Rush) is singing to her. She’s fainting because he’s so sexy when he hits that top note. Understandable really, I can’t think why I didn’t realise that before.