Grease – Review – Sheffield Lyceum Theatre

By Clare Jenkins, November 2024

Just where do the assembled cast of Nikolai Foster’s 2022 revival of the high-school musical Grease get their energy from? Two-and-a-half hours of Arlene Phillips-choreographed dance, gliding and galloping up and down stairs, over gym climbing bars and a vaulting horse, into, out of and over a clapped-out old Ford convertible… How do they remember all the supercharged dance moves?

Eye-poppingly slick, the show sets out to dazzle from the start, thanks not least to Colin Richmond’s glitzy set and Ben Cracknell’s equally effective lighting.

Joe Dash as manic radio jock Vince Fontaine is spinning records high up on stage, framed by a glowing red circle. Down below, the teenage Burger Palace Boys (the T-Birds in the iconic 1978 film) are gathering – slicked-back hair, studded leather jackets – to josh each other, sing the title song and make suggestive gestures. Have denim jeans ever been more robustly rubbed? Surely the thrust stage is next door at the Crucible? At times, the testosterone is pumping as fast as the dry ice.

The Pink Ladies, meanwhile, are doing what girls always do: flouncing around in baby doll pjs and frills, trimming their nails, spraying their hair, gossiping about boys. Into their school circle comes new arrival Sandy Dumbrowski (Hope Dawe), bubble-gum sweet in bobby sox, prim outfit and unhairsprayed blonde hair.

“Muscular agility”

While she tells her new friends about her recent summer romance, that same love interest Danny Zuko (Marley Fenton) is boasting to his gang about his ‘conquest’. Same story, different take, and a chance to sing ‘Summer Nights’.

John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John are difficult acts to follow, of course, but Fenton is a winsome Danny, half-man, half-boy, acting tough but secretly soft-hearted, especially where Sandy is concerned. Dawe, though, isn’t around enough to make much mark or for much chemistry to develop between her and Danny, so there’s little sense of how the relationship evolves. And her transition from wide-eyed innocent to leather-clad biker girl comes out of nowhere, as though an explanatory scene has been cut.

Other characters, too, don’t get the chance to establish their personalities, script sometimes being sacrificed for more songs. At times, those songs are so over-amplified, the dialogue so fast and in such high-pitched faux-American voices, that both are rendered incomprehensible. Sandy’s strained rendition of ‘Hopelessly Devoted to You’, for instance, becomes an ear-covering screech. Although there’s a live band of eight musicians below, maybe someone switched the 45rpm needle to 78?

On the good side, Ben Nicholas brings muscular agility and presence to the role of Kenickie, the Burger Boys’ bad guy, especially during the athletic ‘Greased Lightnin’’ sequence. Sario Solomon is disarming as Sonny, eventually charming the equally appealing Pink Lady Frenchy (Alicia Belgarde), while Emerald B and Lewis Day make their mark in the second act, shyly cosying up to each other at the school sports day.

“Exuberance”

But if there’s sometimes a lack of substance, overall the show fizzes like pop candy, with a cheerleaders’ dance, jiving (cue the Hand Jive song) and a fabulously camp scene involving Joe Dash as Teen Angel (in Liberace-style white suit and glittery shoes), surrounded by dancers in massive Dame Edna wigs and glasses.

It’s West Side Story meets American Girl magazine, as the cast channel their inner James Dean/Sandra Dee. There are issues here of sexual harassment, questionable male behaviour, rejection and unwanted pregnancy. But ultimately the show gives a whole new definition to exuberance. And, at the finale on the first night, the audience were on their feet, clapping, singing, cheering and videoing. It was certainly the one that they wanted.

‘Grease’ is at Sheffield Lyceum Theatre until Saturday, then continues its UK tour
images: Marc Brenner