Grease

USER (09Mar04): GREASE Starring Ben Richards and Suzanne Carley Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, 8 March 2004 Having seen other productions of ‘Grease’ also directed by David Gilmore and with Arlene Phillips staging and choreography sadly this is the weakest to date. I am by no means against loud volume music when the occasion is the right one however to distort the very music and to obliterate the vocal tracks on virtually every company number is not my idea of how a musical should be performed. I had always until now chuckled when veteran performer Hubert Gregg recounted not having been to the West End theatre since the introduction of amplification, now I tend to see or is that hear his point! Ben Richards (Danny) is a very able performer with great experience and he is well partnered by Suzanne Carley (Sandy) in her professional debut. Suzanne performed a creditable ‘Hopelessly devoted to you’ and luckily for her the orchestra did not drown out her vocal. Ben added his own stylistic touch to the vocals and he has a strong voice but even he was frequently drowned out. Together Ben and Suzanne do their best in a somewhat ragged production in which it takes the full company until the final production number ‘You’re the one that I want’ to actually put the whole thing together. Jane Quinn gives a great and amusing performance as Miss Lynch but there are few magical moments in this production in spite of it being a sell out and having been produced more successfully in the past. Generally, a disappointment. Clive Fuller