Grease is the Word

Over the past few years Cinema Sing-a-longs have become something of a big hit with audiences, where people can go to watch their favourite film with bells on. Those bells being karaoke lyric tracks on the screen so everyone can sing to their favourite songs, while added visuals pop up to prompt the audience. There is also the inclusion, in some cases, of a goodie bag with various items that can be used at certain parts of the film and the emphasis on encouraging the viewers to come in fancy dress as their favourite character. The most popular of those cinematic hybrids have been Mamma Mia (I literally cannot think of a worse punishment to bestow on someone) and The Sound of Music (am I the only one that feels that a theatre full of pretend nuns is a scary prospect?).

My first experience of this mad mad world came last weekend when I went to a Sing-a-long with Grease night at the Empire theatre in Liverpool with two fellow pink ladies and one hopelessly emotive Sandy. I have quite a lot of affection for the movie, though no where near as much as many of my fellow theatregoers, and our own Sandy wanted to play out a lifelong dream to be Ms Dee so I decided to give it a go. We had our ‘Summer Lovin’ Sandy, as perky and naive as they come. We had our Rizzo, who was definitely the most, ahem, experienced of us all. We had our Frenchie, the sweetest and most loyal of the bunch. Then there was me, as Marty, who yes is somewhat of a two bit part, not the most memorable of the pink ladies but she did have a few choice lines, a natty perchance for neck scarf’s and was less likely to be imitated on the night, due to her lower ranking in the pink lady food chain.

Dressed in our finest Grease attire, for which I may add we were very faithful to the costumes in the film, we headed to the theatre, after some much needed alcoholic reinforcements. The street outside the Empire was awash with a sea of Rydell High Affiliates, with varying degrees of effort, some hen night gangs who had just thrown on a pink jacket over their clobber to some beauty school girls sporting magnificent domes of silver barrelled rollers atop their glittery creations. The cluster of pink and polka dots continued into the foyer where also sadly roomed no young John Travolta tinged studs but middle aged Danny Zukos after working on too many cars and eating too many cheeseburgers, though at least there were some men there at all and they had made an effort, which stopped the whole night looking like an episode of Loose Women on crack. After grabbing some more fuel (aka alcohol) and some lovely sweets from an old fashioned cart, we ushered into the theatre room to take our seats, amidst a gaggle of hysteria, costumes and chaos.

Our compeer for the evening was again a not so in his prime Danny, who had hastily thrown on a leather jacket and quiff wig to take to the stage, though he did receive a rapturous applause from the baying crowd. Danny then did his best Butlins entertainer routine as his went through the ‘rules’ for the evening, how to perform the hand jive and the contents of the goodie bag. So we had to swoon whenever Danny came on screen (the real one not the later life version), we had to boo when bad guy crater face came into frame, we had to make catty noises for Rizzo and so on and so forth. Our little bag of tricks contained props to help us along our merry journey, including hankies for the weepy Sandy solo ‘Hopelessly Devoted To You’, a chequered flag for the drag race where T Bird Danny takes on crater face (my personal favourite item of the night) and a bag of pretzels, supplied by the sponsors of the event, who were randomly a pretzel company. Then came the slightly annoying part- the fancy dress competition. Butlins Danny welcomed all to come and join in the competition to win a dubious selection of prizes, and an array of colourful characters took to the stage, including our very own ‘Summer Lovin’ Sandy. For whilst there was a range of outfits from the inspired (Eugene!!) to the ridiculous (since when did the pink ladies dress as school girls with face paint and knee high socks?), the annoying part was that no matter how faithful you were to the original costumes, you were never going to win against a five year old dressed in a Ra-Ra skirt. And this leads me to my biggest grumble of the event- children, don’t get me wrong, I am not one to deprive a child of a cinematic trip, but this perhaps should have been part of a matinee performance, rather than letting an infant stay up on a Friday night in a room full of women being encouraged to thrust their hips provocatively at the screen. The tone of the evening seemed at odds, one minute we were maintaining a family friendly atmosphere by editing the word cream from the lyrics to ‘Grease Lightning’ and the next we are shaking our pelvis’ faster than Elvis at Vegas.

But inappropriateness aside, I threw myself into the spirit of the night and while I tried to watch my language, I soon forgot about the children, two of whom I was probably blocking the view of the screen anyway, due to proximity behind me. As someone who usually can't stand it if people chat during a film, it was an interesting, and welcome change to actually be encouraged to whoop and holler at the screen, which our party did with gusto. Things got rather messy at times, when a crowded auditorium are all trying to dance in the aisles at the same time, things are going to go awry, but it was a truly fun, immersive experience and a new way to watch a beloved favourite film. It was also great to see our Sandy enjoying her favourite movie, once she got past being called soppy Sandy, much to her chagrin. When somebody gets to knock something off their bucket list, it is an infectious occurrence.
And so we bopped and jived through the film and the night, ending in a crescendo of party poppers bursting as Danny and Sandy fly (?) off into the sunset.

We left the theatre, many worse for wear ladies and duff Dannys spilling out into the streets of Liverpool and our time at Rydell was over. As we drove off into the sunset, we however didn’t take off into the air, we clutched our bags of pretzels with a smile on our faces from the evening’s frivolities.
Reflecting on my first time at a Sing-a-long event, I hung up my pink lady jacket and while I was hoarse of throat, I was filled with memories of a weird but wonderful time.

Now if only they can do a Bugsy Malone one……