Summer Holiday

Last night I watched an almost entire audience rise to its feet and go crazy. I saw the original film in 1963 when I was seven years old and in the intervening years the flimsy plot has not improved – I did not stand. It may seem harsh, but despite a stage filled with talented and enthusiastic young performers, both principals and chorus particularly William Beckerleg who proved to be great at creating a series of comic incidental characters, I found that there was a lot lacking.When Taryn Sudding strides onto the stage and announces “this is a nice shady spot” she was declaring quite a truth. I have seldom seen a show so inadequately lit, the front metre or so of the stage was nearly always in total darkness, and as for the scenes on board the ubiquitous bus, which dominated the set, most of those were played in total darkness. Did the follow spot operator not know where the red monolith was? Given that after the first scene most of the rest of the show is set in sunny summertime locations, it could well have been set at night in an industrial landscape. Of course much of the problem lies in the massive range of settings required to follow the expansive geography of the piece. There was little given to set the show in place, or for that matter time. Stylistically it was somewhat ragged, the boys costumes perhaps the most accurate but the girls frocks and hairstyles ranging from mid 50s to early disco. I felt much the same about the choreography which at times had a period feel but all to often became frenetically contemporary.

There are of course some great songs from that great canon of pop hits that Cliff and The Shadows generated, but there are also a few that do not stand the test of time and these seem clunky and unnecessary in 2018. adding little to the narrative or the overall effect.

Ray Quinn is of course a delight and his performance is filled with the cheesy charm and vocal ease of the young Cliff Richard, he even looks like him! Quinn is immensely likeable in the role although that plummy accent seems at odds with a boy who works as an engineer in a London bus garage – but then so did Cliff’s.

In 1963, after the film, my mum asked me if I had liked it. “I liked Tommy Steele better in Tommy The Torreador” better I declared. I think I still do.

Theatre Royal Brighton

17 July

Andrew Kay

Rating: