Modern twists don't hit spot

GREASE

George Lawton Hall, Mossley to Saturday

MOSSLEY AODS is widely known as one of the most exciting amateur theatre companies in the area, and that goes double for its highly proficient youth company, Next Generation.

So the omens were good for yet another serving of Grease, one of those shows every keen theatregoer in the western world must have seen - twice - and which still packs in the crowds; indeed this show is already sold out.

Does it deserve it? Well there is no doubt the cast is energetic, occasionally wonderful to watch and hear, and never gives less than 100 per cent commitment.

It's just a slight pity that some of this hard work is a little diminished by director Hannah Davenport's strange update to 2016 in nothing but name and costume.

The entire premise of Grease is that it's about Fifties teenage life, that its musical influences are doo-wop and rock and roll and each character clearly lives in the rock and roll era. Saying it is 2016 and giving the cast relatively modern dress doesn't make it so.

There is also an accommodation to allow the Pink Ladies girl gang to have a man, Marty, in its ranks, though a clearly camp one (luckily played relatively sensitively by Tom Kehoe); and a female Doody (Keavy Smith) in boy gang the T-Birds. Neither really benefits from this presumably modern life-reflecting change, though neither does it much detract from characters reduced pretty much to stereotypes over the years anyway.

General turmoil occasionally shows during the evening. Choreographer Molly France does a good job of moving young performers round the stage, but occasionally things got a little messy. It was sometimes hard to see (from my ground-height seat) who was supposed to be speaking with groups all over the floor-level stage.

As usual with this company, the supporting players work hard and replace with energy what it lacks in performing ability, though the latest of the talented Farrow sisters, Katherine, needs make no apology for her confident acting and strong singing voice as Rizzo.

Slightly diffident Georgia Taylor wouldn't have been an obvious choice as Sandy but in her solo spot "Hopelessly Devoted" in act two she knocks the full-throttle vocal line off the stage. Heroun Jedall similarly wouldn't be an obvious choice as Danny, but he finds the voice and swagger when it matters.