Grease the Musical at Birmingham Alexandra Theatre - Review

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Mon 15 Jul 2024 - Sat 20 Jul 2024

It’s hard to believe but Grease the Musical premiered back in 1971 - and it has remained a huge crowd-pleaser ever since. Through countless productions, including the blockbuster John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John movie, the rocky romance of Danny Zuko and Sandra Dumbrowski has continued to be a much-loved story.

It is, of course, helped by the catchy songs which not only take the story forward and help create character but have become hits in their own right. With songs including Summer Nights, Hopelessly Devoted To You, Greased Lightning, We Go Together, You’re the One that I Want and Grease is the Word, who doesn’t know all the words to at least a handful of the show’s tracks?
This production, directed by Nikolai Foster, benefits from the input of Arlene Phillips in creating choreography which is energetic, fun and very fifties. The cast gives it their all, bursting with enthusiasm as they perfect some impressive twirls and leaps.



Hope Dawe has Sandy down to a tee. She’s initially the straight-laced out-of-towner whose clean living prompts the disdain of the Pink Ladies who spend most of their time hanging out with the boys. But with her love affair with Danny on the rocks because of her super clean behaviour, Sandy dons the skintight trousers and high heels and wows him with her sex appeal.

Marley Fenton’s Danny is surprisingly likeable bearing in mind he’s treated Sandy appallingly, putting his reputation as a tough sex god above his genuine feelings for her. He struts around the stage like a proud rooster convinced that everyone can’t help but love him.

Rebecca Stenhouse gives us a feisty Rizzo, a girl who just wants to have fun and yet has her vulnerable side which we see when the fun may have been a little too much and she believes, mistakenly, she is pregnant.

On press night, Adam Davidson stepped seamlessly into the shoes of Kenickie, the car-mad youngster who believes he can turn a rust heap into 'Greased Lightning,' and who has more than a soft spot for Rizzo.

Colin Richmond’s set takes us into Rydell High but also provides an overhead space for Joe Gash’s DJ Vince Fontaine to spin the discs and create a chorus to the work. Richmond’s costumes are perfect for the piece – while his imagination is given flight in 'Beauty School Dropout' when Gash’s Teen Angel leads a chorus of pink bewinged and bewigged angels.



It’s interesting that Grease has stayed the course. Imagine going into a production meeting today and saying you have a storyline about a perfectly nice and normal young woman who doesn’t smoke, drink or sleep around but falls in love with a local gang member who lies about her and tries to pressure her into sex. Then instead of calling him out under # metoo, she decides to change to become what he wants her to be!

And yet, the show has remained massively popular largely because it deals with a dose of nostalgia not just for the fifties in which it’s set but for the seventies and eighties in which it first caught the imagination of the public.

Ultimately Grease is a bubble gum piece of pop musical with often naughty but loveable characters and a host of great songs and for that reason, it will no doubt continue to draw in the audiences.

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