Grease is one one of those films that I have never been able to sit and watch all the way through.  It’s just one of those films that properly irritates me.  When I was reminded this morning that we were going to see Grease, the musical, to say I wasn’t very excited is a bit of an understatement.  I was not looking forward to it at all.

However, within 10 minutes of the curtain rising, I knew we would be in for a fun night.  The band appeared and started with a medley of songs from the film that got the whole audience clapping and whooping – I guess the excitement kind of just rubbed off on me.  The band were good too – and I like watching good bands!

What followed was 2 hours of brilliant choreographed dancing mixed with plenty of laughs filled with the strongest cheese from start to finish.  It was cheese in a good way, I must add.  It was slick throughout (not just the quiffs) and the actors did their roles justice, but the early excitement amongst the audience never really kept its momentum throughout the show – but maybe this is just typical of a Southampton crowd.

 

I was told that the story did not follow the film exactly, but the beginning and end results are the same – boy falls in love with girl, they split, get back together, split again and eventually fall in love and live happily ever after.

The highlight of the show for me was the The Garage scene, with the T-Birds rolling up in a battered car (with some great pyrotechnics thrown in for good measure), chucking in a whole load of laughs before the car transforms in a shiny “Pussy Wagon” and they launch into the song, Greased Lightin.

 

Act One ended on a high with the entire cast joining in for a brilliant rendition of We Go Together, something that had me shoulder dancing, tapping my feet and laughing pretty loudly.  Special mention goes to Eugene, the nerd, who had probably brought the most laughs from the crowd all night long.

Act Two seemed to be slightly slower than Act One, with more ballads making an appearance – although Born To Hand Jive, my partners favourite song of the night, had an early airing.  When skating legend Robin Cousins made a 10 minute cameo appearance in Beauty School Dropout, the ham he added to all the cheese helped earn him the biggest cheer of the night.

The final medley woke the crowd up again, something we’d been waiting for all show, and I’m sure if it went on for another 5 minutes the entire crowd would have been on their feet.  But a packed house clapping along and swaying in their seats was what we had and that was good enough for me!

Although not being a show I would normally choose to go and see, it made for a nice birthday treat and I actually did come away with a big grin on my face, and I’d definitely recommend it to any fans of the film.

And boys, if you could do with winning some top brownie points, I’d strongly recommend you take your partner to see Grease (you’ll probably find you enjoy it too!)

Grease is definitely the word. (Although so is cheese).

Grease runs at Southampton Mayflower until Saturday July 16th.  For more information and tickets visit The Mayflower website