Review: Grease at Pitlochry Festival Theatre
Blythe Jandoo brings attitude to Sandy that is more than a match for Alexander Service as Danny, with able support from Fiona Wood as a badass Rizzo and Tyler Collins as a strutting Kenickie. Under the guidance of musical director Richard Reeday, the massed ranks of Pitlochry's seventeen-strong ensemble also take up instruments to act as the band in what has become PFT's house style.
Set-pieces abound on Nick Trueman's retro cool set beneath Rory Beaton's pink-hued lighting, in which a jukebox and a couple of diner chairs can become a hot rod as the Burger Palace Boys belt out Greased Lightin'. Solo highlights include Jandoo's turn singing Hopelessly Devoted to You, while Wood shows bad girl Rizzo's sensitive side on There Are Worse Things I Could Do. Keith Macpherson, meanwhile, has a ball as perma-grinning TV host Vince Fontaine.
Best of all is April Nerissa Hudson as Frenchy, who enters the dreamscape of Beauty School Dropout accompanied by a gaggle of Teen Angels clad in Julie Carlin's fantastical costumes and brought to spinning life by Kally Lloyd-Jones' witty choreography.
Jacobs and Casey's version of rock and roll rebellion may be more Bill Haley than Gene Vincent, but Hardie's fresh take on things makes for a pitch perfect accompaniment to summer nights, where Grease is still very much the word.
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