Grease is the Word...or not as the case seems to be

So I'm a big musicals person. I am a mine of useless information about them and I love going to the theatre to see them. Obviously there are the favourite ones that you see over and over again, and the ones that steal 3 hours of your life never to be gained back.

This year I'm directing Grease for the school I work in and so myself, and the two other teachers involved took ourselves up to The Big Smoke to see the current West End production. We saw the 5.30pm performace last night and well...my middle schoolers are doing a better job after only 4 rehearsals.

Apparently the cast was new that week, but if that is the case, then I'd be dragging them all back for notes. With fluffed lines, wrong dance moves, mostly dreadful, mumbled american accents which meant that lines were unintelligible it was a disaster.

I've seen 7 or 8 professional productions of Grease, both in the West End and on Tour, but this is by far the worst. Dancers were unsure of the highly simplified routines and dear god, the 'Born To Handjive' number was half the speed it's meant to be! At £32.50 a ticket, I'm seriously debating asking for my money back, but on the plus side...My wee school production is looking better and better by the minute ;)