Any stage production of Grease has two major obstacles to overcome.
Firstly, while the musical hit Broadway in 1971, most people will have experienced Grease via the smash-hit movie that dominated the pop charts in 1978, making superstars of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. I played my mother’s double LP of the soundtrack to death, and who hasn’t donned a leather or pink bomber jacket for a sing-a-long night?
The film does not follow the original script to the letter, and is more soft-focus than the gritty stageplay. It can come as a surprise to find Sandy’s surname is now Dumbrowski (hence Sandra Dee), the T-Birds are suddenly Burger Joint Boys, and the songs are redistributed all over the place – for example, Kenickie takes the lead in Greased Lightning.
Secondly, a lot of the content can seem rather dated to a 21st century audience. Moral values were very different in 1978, and different again in the 1950s - which were only two decades earlier, a bit like watching the mid-noughties today – and things have changed massively since then.
My 14-year-old daughter fumed at what she felt was sexist treatment and portrayals of the female characters. And while I knew my childhood cinematic experience of Grease would be very different as a grown-up, I was still blind-sided by all the hip-thrusting, and references both explicit and implied to sexual acts.
None of this is the fault of the current production crew at Truro’s Hall For Cornwall - and indeed, they make no apology for going back to the source material and presenting it faithfully. Good for them.
And if you can get your head around all that, you’ll have a great time. The band is fantastic (but occasionally drowned the lyrics - we also struggled with the dialogue, with its cod New Yoik accents).
But where Grease shines is in its set musical pieces. The ensemble dancing is second to none, with the cast acting as one – the stage really came alive in those moments.
There were also some stand-out solo performances: Hope Dawe singing Sandy’s Hopelessly Devoted To You and Rebecca Stenhouse’s delivery of Rizzo’s There Are Worst Things I Could Do were of particular note.
And I was thrilled to find many numbers, buried in the background of the film’s hop scene, elevated to star billing and performed by minor characters - such as Mooning by Roger (Lewis Day) and Those Magic Changes by Doody (Kieran Lynch) – and I thought Thomas Inge as Johnny Casino was just dynamite.
As the last number faded, the audience were on their feet for a standing ovation, raring to dance and sing to the megamix designed specifically for that purpose. A visiting friend described it as “uplifting entertainment” - you can’t say fairer than that.