by “Ben”

The world is full of “feel-good” teenage musicals –perhaps originating long ago with ‘Grease’ and ‘Saturday Night Fever’ and continuing with such recent examples as ‘Hair Spray’, ‘High School Musical’
and now ‘A Slice of Saturday Night’, set in a 1964 Club, where the young studs or would be studs line up to survey and perhaps interact with the talent on view, dressed in their finest plumage and ready to accept
or forestall the efforts of the male aggressor.
The Nomad’s offering last week, directed by Jeff Wightwick, at the Nomad Theatre lived up to our expectations.


As the Company is well-equipped with a plethora of talented young singers and dancers ‘Saturday Night’ fulfilled our expectations. This show might well be described as “Lionel Bart meets ‘Stags and
Hens’. The music is undoubtedly derivative and part of the fun for the audience is recognising the original pop song from the late ‘50’s and early ‘60’s. How this show reminded us of how being 17 years old is harder for boys, expected to take the lead, than the girls.
Brilliantly led by the superb quartet of on stage musicians playing many instruments and styles, even to a snatch of a John Lennon harmonica, led by the excellent Musical Director, James Marr, the show took off from the first as we were introduced to the Club A Go-Go in a provincial town in the early sixties although, judging by the cast accents, we were definitely in the London area. The rather sleazy manager, Eric ‘Rubber Legs’ de Vere, Simon Oppenshaw, a newcomer to the Nomad stage, was an excellent host than and was not averse to joining in the boys’ machinations as they attempted to get-off with the girls. He saw his role as being responsible for both sexes.

The boys: Gary, Stuart Norris, is perhaps not quite the stud he pretends to be, Rick, Chris Poplett, is less secure – will he really find love tonight?- Eddie, Francis Pindar, all bombast and arrogance and perhaps not quite as irresistible as he likes to think he is. They provided an excellent trio of would-be suitors with varying success during the evening.


The girls: lined up for examination, were sweet Sharon, Ces Scott; Sue, Georgina Charlotte Clifton; Penny, Sophie Johnstone, and “frigid” Bridget, Jade Tolfree. Without exception these girls were superb in their representations of young women, growing rather uncertainly from adolescence to womanhood; every aspect of their presentations, with just the right level of confidence and gaucherie, with costumes and hair-styles carefully chosen to represent the period – I gather that some of them were wearing their mother’s period-perfect dresses.

A brief ‘Sonny and Cher’ interlude with Stuart and Sophie provided an especially funny moment, as did Stuart’s attempt to chat up the women in the audience .
Once the atmosphere of the rather sleazy Club A Go-Go has been created, the audience appreciation must depend on the singing and dancing before us. Here we were not disappointed in any way as both were from the top
drawer; Georgina and Polly King are to be congratulated on the splendid choreography, meticulously rehearsed and performed by everyone.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 22nd, 2013 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Production News, Reviews, Theatre. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.