PLAYHOUSE THEATRE

Great night out: Guaranteed
Morning after effect: Doing the twist with style
Recommend to friends: Certainly

See again: Yes, with my dancing shoes!
Best bit: The Southend Slugger's take on Da Doo Ron Ron

I wasnt a teen in the 1960s; however having a quick listen to the Dreamboats and Petticoats compilation album before the show, I recognised plenty of tracks. I can clearly remember being taught the moves to Lets Twist Again (or perhaps a remix of the original) at my first school disco.

The 'teenage love' theme is a familiar one, which has had great success on stage. Dreamboats and Petticoats has a slightly different take as it is the first musical to be based on a compilation album. Authors Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran have crammed in as many of the timeless rock and roll tunes into the show as possible (42 to be exact). Guaranteeing a night of toe tapping and hand jiving.

The storyline in this show is secondary and if youre after deep characterisation and originality youll search in vain. Luckily it seemed that the audience were primarily there to hear the music of their old time favourites. There is plenty of witty dialogue in between the hits and some fantastic transitions from narrative to song that will invoke plenty of laughter.

Set in 1961 at St Mungo's youth club in Essex, Dreamboats and Petticoats tells the story of song writing hopefuls Bobby and Norman who compete not only to win the national song writing contest but to win the Hearts of the rather dreamy Sue the Queen bee of St Mungos Youth Club.

Bobby is played by Scott Bruton, X Factor finalist and former Emmerdale actor Ben Freeman takes the role of the rather cool Norman while Sue is played by Jennifer Biddall from Hollyoaks. The show also features three new stars, Daisy Wood-Davis, A.J Dean and Emma Hatton who were handpicked from hundreds of hopefuls at open auditions in the West End and David Cardy who is best known for his role in Birds of a Feather.

The cast perform vibrant, evocative and melodic renditions of the songs. All musicians are on-stage and part of the action and produce an endless stream of great sounding music. Dreamboats and Petticoats features classics from The Shadows, Roy Orbison, Eddie Cochran, Billy Fury, to name a few, including Let's Dance, Three Steps To Heaven, To Know Him Is To Love Him, Shaking All Over, Bobby's Girl, Little Town Flirt, Runaround Sue, Let It Be Me, Happy Birthday Sweet 16, Great Pretender, C'mon Everybody, Only Sixteen, Let's Twist Again and many more! Towards the end of the show the cast had majority of the audience on their feet doing the twist and dancing and clapping along to favourites.

Although at times the storyline is rather cheesy and predictable Dreamboats and Petticoats was a very entertaining show with a big feel-good factor. This show definitely needs to be followed by a night dancing on the town.

Audience
Dreamboats and Petticoats holds no age restriction. Children aged 5 and over will be admitted to the theatre. Regrettably no babies and toddlers will be admitted to the Savoy Theatre.

Theatre Advice
Savoy has a lovely auditorium which seats 1157 people. It has rather intriguing large grapes painted on the walls in the hallway. There are four bars: Stalls, Lounge, Dress Circle and Upper Circle.

Due to a high stage the view is restricted from rows A to C in the Stalls for most children and shorter adults. In the Stalls the Dress Circle overhangs the stalls, the view from row O back is slightly affected. In the Dress Circle the Upper Circle overhangs the Dress Circle slightly affecting the view from row K back. Upper Circle is rather high up above the stage so the rear seats feel rather distant from the stage.