We all grew up with the romance of the movie Grease, hopelessly devoted to the songs, the cars, the clothes and the culture it bred, so when I turned up to see the touring stage show with my mum this week, it was no surprise to see devoted fan base dressed in pink ladies jackets and leather with lace up sneakers and bobby socks.
It set the scene for the whole show that buzzed from song to song bringing back great memories and mixing it up with a great array of singers and dancers.
The show featured Rob Mills as Danny, Gretel Scarlett as Sandy, and a terrific line up of Australian stars in cameo roles. The cast of the show were outstanding, with most the noticeable characters being those of Rizzo, Marty and Kenickie. Bert Newton and Anthony Callea were great, but the man who really stole the show was Todd McKenny. Todd took one of the most boring songs of the movie “Beauty School Dropout” and turned it into a groovy, crowd engaging Peter Allen mashup complete with the cancan to squeals of adoration from the audience. It not only made me smile, it had me hoping it would go on longer. He was enjoying every minute of his star appeal too, working it hard with pauses to wind up the squealing crowd further.
The show itself starts off with the romantic story we know and love, taking us through most of the songs we expected in a fairly comfortable manner. Rob Mills offered all his personality to the crowd, while Gretel held back, possibly a little too much in her characterisation of Sandy but visibly opened up to a more comfortable place when she put on the black catsuit at the end.
The costumes were fun, the cast was cheeky and the acting was engaging, but without the polish of a traditional show, perhaps on purpose to let people in and have them feel like they were reliving their youth. It wasn’t until the second half of the show that it really grabbed me and shook me up though. In the second half, the script and cast start to integrate some witty humour, and we get big big songs with big big entertainment. That, combined with the energy of Bert Newton, Todd McKenny and Anthony Callea, made the second half much more fun.
The stand out voice of the show was not from the two main stars, but instead that of Kenickie, who was awesome. The ending didnt miss a beat, with the big song delighting everyone, even if Sandy’s catsuit was way more demure than Olivia Newton John’s.
Then, when we thought the show was complete, we were treated to a ten or more minute encore of the shows hits, performed traditionally as we would have expected with all the dancers so we could live through it all over again. This was a fantastic value-add.
I took my mum to see the show, so I could enjoy her trip back through time as well as my own, and she loved it as much, or perhaps more than I did. A great mother-daughter night out, so do try, as it tours the country, to find a reason to go.
Grease is showing in Brisbane now until 12th October.
Sydney from the 13th October
Melbourne from the 2nd January
For more information, please click here.
