Summer Holiday

The opening guitar lick from Cliff Richard’s first hit, ‘Move It’ (1958) opens this show and brings back memories of a time when “teenagers” had only recently been acknowledged.  I confess that, as an old rocker, I would have liked to hear the guitar a bit louder in the mix throughout the show, but I was still caught up in a nostalgic time warp, travelling back to an era when everything seemed so much simpler.  I was deeply disappointed by the original film in 1963.  I was 18 and wanted more rock ‘n’ roll, not the Shadows prancing about in embarrassing Greek costumes.  The music was actually fine (if you closed your eyes during those bits) and the show has much more music from the Cliff Richard/Shadows catalogue than the film had.  Featured numbers include big hits like ‘Footapper’,’ In The Country’, ‘Gee Whiz It’s You’, ‘Constantly’,’ I Could Easily Fall In Love With You’,’Time Drags By’,’ Bachelor Boy’, Dancin’ Shoes’, ‘We Say Yeah!’,’ Living Doll’,’ Do You Wanna Dance?’, ‘The Next Time’, ‘On the Beach’ and, bizarrely to me, ‘The Young Ones’ (which was from a totally different film) plus, of course,’Summer Holiday’.  Quite a hefty catalogue of hit songs, I hope Cliff gets some royalties!

The plot remains paper-thin. Four boys and three girls borrow a London bus and head for Athens via the south of France; en route they come to the aid of an American pop star (Hannah Brown), on the run from her overbearing mother/manager (Katie Howes).  The boys (Michael Skoyles, Alex Easten, Mark Armstrong and Andrew Fearon) put on a humorous show of wisecracks and banter.  Andrew Fearon, who is a fearless performer, found himself with a couple of the best songs to sing, which he did with considerable style and humour.  The girls (Laura Rea, Stephanie Noutch and Melanie King) made an impressive “girl group”.  On the evening I saw the show poor Katie Howes was suffering a severely pulled muscle (or worse) but it was not noticeable in her performance.  She still acted her socks off and created an amusing double act with Stephen Stokoe as her long-suffering and highly camp Gopher (as in “go for this, go for that …”)

I enjoyed Hannah Brown’s performance as the runaway pop star, initially disguised as a boy, who inadvertantly shakes off her baseball cap, during a bit of slightly uninhibited head-banging, to reveal rather more hair than most boys had back then.  She sang her solo/duet songs well.  Michael Skoles carried off the “Cliff Richard” part with some charm, although he seemed a little uncomfortable with some of the dance moves he was called upon to perform.  It’s also something of a thankless task, playing “the perfect boyfriend”.

All in all, this was a very entertaining and nostalgic evening with rock ‘n’ roll sounds from the small musical ensemble.  I counted just four musicians from where I was sitting.  Liam Gilbert MD’d from an awkward position at the rear of the stage but carried it off well.  This was a bit of a change for him after playing Jekyll/Hyde impressively in West End’s last production.

I noticed a lot of people in the area I was sitting in, including me, singing along to many of those familiar songs and the finale of three or four back-to-back numbers quite rightly had the audience on their feet for the end of the show.

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