Back To The 80s

Back To The 80's tells the story of the senior class of William Ocean High School as remembered through the eyes of now much older Corey Palmer. 17-year-old Corey is madly in love with his next-door neighbour, Tiffany Houston, one of the coolest girls in the school. Along the way, he has to deal with the popular class bully, a bid to become senior school president and a mix of other relationships. Like many other youth groups, KODYS has dealt with the loss of many of its members during the past two years but has successfully found a revived foundation of new young members on which to build.

The role of young ‘Corey’ was capably handled by Oscar Yeoh who understandably had eyes for ‘Tiffany’ which was played with great strength in song and dance by Lauren L’Enfant. After a great opening company number with ‘Kids in America’, Tiffany led ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ with relish. We meet ‘Michael Feldman’ the most popular and coolest kid in class, which was well played by Mason Howell who excelled with ‘Footloose’, with all the lads which was a really great number. I also liked the number ‘Mickey’ led by ‘Tiffany’ with strong support from her best friend ‘Cyndi’ (Hope Dickenson) along with twins ‘Mel’ and ‘Kim’ (Alice Shelly and Erin Follows)

Josh Hickey captured the characterisation of the class geek ‘Feargal McFerrin’ perfectly and his number ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ with sidekicks ‘Laura’ (Georgia Hyde) and ‘Debbie’ (Daisy Thompson) was great fun. Later a star-wars inspired dream sequence was well executed and very funny .

The opportunity was taken to fill three more ‘senior’ roles with adults. Act I closed with ‘Man in the Mirror’ sung by  teachers ‘Steve Cocker’ and ‘Sheena Brannigan’ played with strength throughout by Dan Richards and Molly Parmenter respectively. Reece Jones also adds strength playing ‘Corey Palmer (Senior)’ and provided many of the links throughout the story.

 Act 2 opens with a concert that Young Corey offered to arrange and at a party at his house whilst parents are away provided the opportunity for ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’ when the choreography was particularly well drilled. The latest addition to the senior class is new girl ‘Eileen’ well played by Alice Hickey and who sang with great sensitively. ‘Michael’ leaves romantic messages for ‘Eileen’ which eventually back fire and these sequences are well played. Another high spot was the arrival of Michael’s impressive car and ‘Get Out of My Dreams (and into my car)’ – a great number, as too was ‘Material Girl’, led by Hope and the lads. The fight scene between ‘Michael’ and ‘Feargal’ was very funny.

The remaining supporting roles fulfilled by Myles Richards, Harrison Bianco (One to watch for the future), Billy Brooks, Toby Denton, Chris Kemp, Finley Stanier, Roxie Jordan and Summer Pitman and other students were all engaged, although at times talking upstage to each other could not be resisted, but this will be overcome with more experience. The final number ‘Back to the 80s Megamix’ was a rousing conclusion to a performance that triggered a great audience ovation, for which Director Darren Richards and all involved should be rightly proud.

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