If you're after an evening of uplifting, unpretentious, pure entertainment on a dark winter night, and if you love rock and roll, then this is the show for you. They recorded Down By the Riverside that night but did that all star line up make any other music together? What tensions and friendships, alliances and antagonisms might have bubbled to the surface? The show gently explores all this whilst giving plenty of opportunity for the guys and us to enjoy the hits that made them famous, as they jam and spar together.
The piece's a gift for producers as it provides them with a musical packed with much loved songs which can be performed by comparatively small cast. No expensive stars are required as you only need hire young unknowns to impersonate the dead singers whose names become the main attraction. However there's also a central non-singing and undemanding role to which you can assign a celebrity for an extra boost at the box office.
This character is Sam Philips, the gifted small time producer who discovered and signed an extraordinary raft of singers to his tiny record label based in a converted garage. The other attraction for penny pinching producers is the garage/studio is the only set required (although this one is particularly flimsy looking)
On this occasion Sam Philips is played by Gary Kemp, formally of TV soap EastEnders. He's actually very good and very persuasive as a man who must face the prospect of his protégés leaving to sign with more powerful rivals. His acting elevates this very slight subplot to make it feel more substantial than in the previous, long running, West End revival.
But the plot's mere icing on the cake. it's the celebrity impersonators and their infectiously spirited renditions of some of the greatest pop records ever recorded that are rightly central to the evening's success.
Ross William Wilde is a show stopping, pleasingly muscled Elvis, Martin Kaye is a charismatic turbo-charged Jerry Lee Lewis, Robbie Durham is a kindly and spiritual Johnny Cash, Matt Wycliffe is a brooding and temperamental Carl Perkins and Katie Ray is the show's token woman, playing Elvis's girlfriend, who contributes several great solo numbers.
Songs include Blue Suede Shoes, Real Wild Child, Matchbox, Who Do You Love?, Folsom Prison Blues, Fever, Memories Are Made of This, That's All Right, Brown Eyed Handsome Man, Down by the Riverside, Sixteen Tons, Hound Dog and Great Balls of Fire.
This cheap and cheerful production is a lot of fun. Get a ticket, Get along, get up and dance.
Theatre N16 has us dreaming of a bleak festive season by presenting Simon Stephens’ unrelenting Christmas. Set in a pub, four men discuss the tragedies of their lives, and find solace and conflict in each other. Despite the fact Stephens’ writing is always inherently good, one must question the relevance of this play at this time, and its lack of a clear message.