Dreamboats and Petticoats - Review (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

Dreamboats and Petticoats - Review

3:01pm Wednesday 3rd June 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

This musical extravaganza is set in 1961, about a year before The Beatles and the Swinging Sixties when, we are told, sex was "invented".

So any member of the audience below 48 was not yet born, and if below 60 would have remembered little.

Therefore nostalgia or hearsay ruled the day, producing as ebulliently vociferous a response as would have occurred all those years ago.

The story-line seems to have been devised to show off as many different skiffle and rock numbers as possible rather than to create much human interest.

It is a variation on the old show-biz plot of three young entertainers aspiring to rise to the top, with three girls in tow.

The only question is who gets which, and this is obvious from the start.

In fact with such a risible plot, the cast did well, particularly Ben Freeman (randy self-centred) and Scott Burton (good clean image) as would-be pop stars and Daisy Wood-Davis (demure schoolgirl) and Emma Hatton (trollop) as their girls.

The supporting versatile troupe all showed exemplary vigour and dedication, though David Cardy, A. J. Dean and Jennifer Biddall deserve special mention.

The period atmosphere was attempted with such hints as condoms from barber shops; and a 16th birthday (“You can legally do it now”. “Do what?”. “Eh - Smoke”).

However it was the conclusion of rock and roll numbers, everyone given a turn, accompanied by extremes of percussive sound and flashing lights that ultimately brought down the house.

Stan Meares

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)