Grease the Musical is currently playing at The Artscape Theatre Centre in Cape Town before moving on to The Teatro at Montecasino in Johannesburg.ย The West End production was brought to our shores by Pieter Toerien, Paul Nicholas and David Ian and this production, with its entirely local cast will be the first full stage production of the musical to be staged in South Africa for a decade.
I went to the show a few nights ago and judging by the amount of fun the cast of Grease was having, Rydell High in 1955 was the school to be at! ย I enjoyed it tremendously – we had excellent seats and not that I wanted the show to end, but the 2 hours and 20 minutes (including interval time) whizzed by.
The cast was fantastic โ Danny was John Travolta personified.ย The swagger, the hair, the singing and of course the dancing!ย Equally as good was Sandy and together they stole the show.ย The T-Birds with their black jeans, black jackets and ever present sunglasses sang and danced their way through a superb performance.
The Pink Ladies too were brilliant; their 1955 outfits were completely believable and their one linerโs and American accents added that little bit extra to an already good performance.
The rest of the crew also deserve a mention.ย The dancers were tremendous โ what were more than likely exhausting routines were pulled off with flair and ease.
For me any kind of entertainment always meets the mark if it manages to keep my dear old Dad awake โ and Grease, you stole the show!ย The old chap did not nod off even once!ย In fact he was one of the first on his feet during the encores.ย I thoroughly enjoyed my evening at The Artscape and it was well worth the ticket price.
Tickets, dates and how to Book:
Cape Town at the Artscape Theatre 11 April
Johannesburg from 16 April to 13 June at the Teatro Monte Casino
Tickets range from R100 to R350 a person and can be booked via Computicket.
Useful Cape Town Links:
Images:
An automatic slide-show feed of all Creative Commons-licensed images on Flickr using the search term โGrease Musicalโ. (includes Grease musical photographs of productions staged in London and New York).