Boogie Nights

The musical tells the heart-warming story of Roddy, a jack-the-lad, whose life of birds, booze and boogie is about to be turned upside down. It’s the night that the King, Elvis Presley, died and Roddy is busy dreaming of a life as a rock star! For five years or so, Roddy has been with his girlfriend Debs, whilst her best friend Trish has been dating a nerdy mechanic Terry. Relationships evolve around the local night club scene where we are reminded of all the great sounds and sights of the 1970s!

The central character ‘Roddy’ is played with enormous confidence by Dan Richards, holding the stage with style and generally performing and singing with great ease, whilst at the same time developing a great relationship with the audience. His on and off girlfriend ‘Debs’ played by Olivia Darks, also holds the stage well and provides a very natural and convincing characterisation.

Debs friend ‘Trish’ (Hannah Perry) and her boyfriend ‘Terry’ (Louis Wharton) are a capable pair, both capturing their characters well with Louis maximising his nerdy character with some well- timed lines. The local club singers ‘Spencer’ (Jack Simpson) and ‘Lorraine’ (Jessica Richards) have their own somewhat tempestuous relationship, well played, Jessica’s voice particularly being strong.

Great support is provided by Mason Howell (Baz the Bouncer) - a great mover –and Jasmine Tooley as ‘Mandy’. Although a youth show the temptation is not resisted to include one adult as Roddy’s Father ‘Eamon’ played with great presence by Director Darren Richards and this worked well. A particular word for Kane Taylor as ‘Dean’ the club DJ, who you would not have detected joined the cast only a couple of weeks prior to opening night, who sang the moving number ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’ with ‘Debs’ with great feeling.

In fact all the musical numbers were well sung and followed each other at great speed which kept the pace of the production moving forward;   ‘Enough is Enough’  was particularly well handled by Olivia Darks and  Jessica Richards.

Just occasionally the volume of dialogue dropped but overall the sound was good. The costumes and band captured the style of the 1970s and so too did the set with changes handled effectively, and choreography which was well performed particularly by the principals.

KODYS are doing a great job in developing performance skills and building confidence in the youngsters and I congratulate all involved in this production.

 

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.