This summer in Pitlochry, Grease is the word – and I’m reliably informed it’s got groove and it’s got meaning.
It’s also the first big production of Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s 2025 summer season, as programmed by artistic director Elizabeth Newman before she left for Sheffield.
What is it?
This production goes direct to the source, Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey’s 1971 stage musical, but don’t worry – it’s very similar to the 1978 film starring John Travolta and Ollivia Newton-John which everyone thinks of when they think of Grease.
Come for:
The sheer nostalgia hit, as the kids of Chicago’s Rydell High come of age in the school year of 1959. Alexander Service is Danny Zuko, most handsome of all the leather-jacketed greaser boys, and Blythe Jandoo is Sandy Dee, the new girl in school, with whom Danny had a puppyish holiday fling last summer.
Except now he’s way too cool to own up to it in front of his gang, including swaggering, bad-boy wingman Kenickie, played with maximum braggadocio by Tyler Collins.
Of course, to be a Grease worth seeing the music has to be spot-on, and here the seventeen-strong cast of actor-musicians really come through, from the powering full-company opening version of Frankie Valli’s Grease to a joyful finale of You’re the One That I Want, with a lot for the actors to do here in selling Sandy and Danny’s mutual transformation to please one other.
Stay for:
Everything! Nick Trueman’s inventive sets switch between scenes as quickly as the film and Julie Carlin’s costumes are perfect for the times, with Sam Hardie’s pacy direction giving everyone something to do, even when they’re in the background.
In among the ensemble there are also some great individual moments, with Fiona Wood constantly impressing as the sassy Rizzo, who gets to be snarky during Look at Me I’m Sandra Dee and sensitive on There Are Worse Things I Could Do.
The lively Greased Lightning and Born to Hand Jive are also delivered with maximum energy.
Avoid if:
There really is no reason to give it a miss, because anyone coming to see a production of Grease knows what they want from it, and this one delivers.
Although as a view of the 1950s seen from the 1970s, expect a cringe at some of the kids’ olden-days attitudes.
Definitely tell your sons not to go courting hands-first, like Danny at the drive-in.
Verdict:
4/5
Grease is at Pitlochry Festival Theatre until Saturday September 27.
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