GREASE IS THE WORD

By Benjamen Judd

Success is being able to recite the entire script and lyrics from Grease, without flaw, faster and clearer than you are the birthdates and phone numbers of your nearest and dearest. So yeah, you could say that we’re successful. And we’ll be measuring that success when we head down to the Lyric Theatre to watch said best musical ever and sing so loud we’ll probably get asked to leave.

First up, however, we’d like to set a few things straight. Rizzo is the real queen of Rydell High. Why anyone would choose to be that piece of dry toast Sandy over Rizzo is beyond us. And the fact that Olivia Newton-John had the gall to try and steal the spotlight in the film with her drippy gross out ballad was just bad manners because, you see, Rizzo’s “Worst Things I Could Do” was the original ballad for the musical.

Secondly, Patty Simcox is the most under-rated villain of all time. Those glasses, that upbeat and perky attitude that hid a mind that would eventually become the driving force behind a new dictatorship dressed in ruffles.*

And thirdly, Frenchy’s pink hair was the bomb.

So, now that we have that out of our system we can get on with telling you more about the show. In the lead roles of Danny and Sandy are musical theatre favourite Rob Mills and rising star Gretel Scarlett. We’re sure Gretel will do a great job in the role of Sandy and no doubt she secretly wants the role of Rizzo. But there can only be one. Stockard Channing we love you!

*dictatorship may not have happened outside of the school debate team.