Cool Rider was reviewed at the London Palladium.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
When Grease 2 hit cinemas back in 1982, the sounds of its critical and commercial bombing were heard worldwide. Facing immediate criticism for being a pale imitation of its formidable predecessor, it’s gone down in history as one of the worst-received sequels of all time; it may have given Michelle Pfeiffer her breakout role, but on its release she thought she’d committed career suicide. There is, however, a section of the musical-loving community that still holds Grease 2 very dear to their hearts and reveres it as a cult classic. These people were out in exuberant force when the Cool Rider musical adaptation took to the stage of the London Palladium to celebrate its 1oth anniversary, and the elated audience basked in every glorious kitsch second of it.
Taking us back to “that school we can’t mention for legal reasons”, Cool Rider follows Grease 2’s story of romances between T-Birds and Pink Ladies a couple of years after Danny and Sandy disappeared forever in that flying car. Stephanie Zinone (played here by Ashleigh Gray) has had enough of boyfriend Johnny (Tom Senior), and after yet another fight, decides to break up with him and pledges to kiss the next guy she sees.
In walks Michael Carrington (Aaron Sidwell), a cardigan-clad transfer student from England, who falls for Stephanie immediately. Knowing he’ll need to become like a T-Bird to be noticed by her, Michael buys a motorbike and some leather outfits which shield his face, and Stephanie soon develops a crush on this mysterious ‘cool rider’, unaware that it’s Michael. Afraid to reveal his true identity and risk losing her, he goes along with the ruse, much to Johnny’s frustration, who plans to deal with his rival personally.
As any underdog will tell you, one of the greatest tips in life is to laugh at yourself before anyone else can laugh at you, and that is exactly the approach that Cool Rider takes in its adaptation. Grease 2 might not technically be particularly strong, but Cool Rider embraces its over-the-top camp charm, dials it up even higher, and celebrates an arguably mediocre musical with such abundant affection that it knocks it out of the park. This is Rydell High by way of Rocky Horror, a tongue-in-cheek romp so self-aware that it’s almost a parody, and played to an audience who know every lyric and corny line, and shout and sing them with abandon. Normally such audience activity would raise the hackles of the discerning theatregoer, but here it made the evening, seeing an audience so completely happy and immersed in something they love.
Following some recent concert production misfires, it was hugely impressive seeing the Cool Rider creative team getting this one right. This is how you deliver a concert, high energy, great lighting and sound design (Toby Darvill and Will Thompson), impressive choreography (Matt Krzan) and a well-rehearsed cast. The concert showed that a one-night-only production doesn’t have to cut corners or deliver second-rate technical elements, and showed how it’s done. The results were slick, vibrant and massively entertaining. The film’s underrated score was played in full by a dynamic and lively band, and book scenes were kept to a minimum, maintaining a nifty pace and ensuring the hungry fans were never kept waiting too long for their next beloved song.
Reprising their roles from the 2014 run, Sidwell and Gray led the show well and sounded great, clearly loving the chance to do it again. Drag Race’s Kitty Scott-Claus provided heaps of laughs as ‘The French One’ with some clever sarcastic narration, and West End favourites Jacob Fowler and Courtney Bowman were great to watch as always. Someone needs to ensure that Debbie Kurup is given more comedic roles in future, being a ditzy knockout here as Ms Mason, nailing the character and also showing off that voice later on. There was also a huge amount of love in the room for Maxwell Caulfield, the original Michael in the film, and having him be a part of this celebration as Mr Stuart was really special.
Grease 2 doesn’t deserve the negative reputation it got stuck with, and Cool Rider is the proof. An absolute guilty pleasure whose sole purpose is to entertain and leave you smiling, the concert showed there is still a huge amount of (very enthusiastic!) affection for this musical, and we can only hope that the voracious appetite on the evening convinced producers to let us all ‘Score Tonight’ again sometime very soon.
Rob Bartley
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