Compared to previous years, the examinations this year seemed to end rather  late. By the end of the examinations, there were three musicals that I planned to catch (Beautiful And Damned, Tonight's The Night and Jailhouse Rock). Fortunately, through a series of SMS messages with a former college classmate, Wen Wei,  I found out that he was interested in watching one of these three musicals as well.

Since Jailhouse Rock didn't seem to do any discounts that were lower than £22.50, we decided to go for the £17.50 student standby tickets available one hour before the performance. We met for dinner at Cafe TPT before going to buy out student standby tickets. We managed to get central stall seats near the front. At the theatre, we managed to take a photograph with the help of an usher who was more interested in giving directions to a couple of nubile babes. With one hour to spare, under Wen Wei's recommendation, we decided to go down to a nearby Music And Video Exchange store which specialized in second hand CDs, Videos and DVDs. I didn't expect to find any musicals there since I expected such stores to be stocked with pop and rock CDs which has the larger mass appeal generally required in the second-hand goods market, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a Miss Saigon Original London Cast Recording (£7) and a Man of La Mancha recording (£11). Not being a fan of second-hand products, I didn't get either of them.

Jailhouse Rock The Musical is based on the motion picture of the same name made famous by Elvis Presley. However, prior to its opening, much news centered around the producers being unable to secure the necessary permission and copyrights to include the title track into its song list. The musical was preceded with an announcement that Melanie Marcus would be replaced by her understudy Alison Carter and that  Mario Kombou would be replaced by his understudy Michael Quinn. I was much more disappointed with the latter news because earlier reviews had a very favorable response towards Kombou's  portrayal of Presley's title character, Vince Everett and his uncanny Presley signature moves. Fortunately, his understudy Quinn proved to be more than adequately good in the role. It would have been nice to see how much better the first-choice Kombou was.  

Did Jailhouse Rock rock? During the start of the musical, it certainly did threaten to rock me to sleep. Things picked up when the hot-headed Everett accidentally kills his love rival in a bar brawl. After  the manslaughter, I nearly laughed when one other character immediately strutted into the bar and efficiently picked up the "dead" corpse, draped it over his shoulders and left the bar so quickly, as though this was such a regular occurrence in this bar. 

Charged with manslaughter, Everett is sentenced to serve time in prison. There, he meets former singer Hawk Houghton (Roger Alborough) and Quickly Robinson (Gilz Terera). Along the way, recognizable Presley songs like Are You Lonesome Tonight?, Big Rock Candy Mountain and Big Boss Man worm their way into the story. However, special mention has to go to Terera and the supporting cast's breathtaking a capella rendition of Pretty Little Angel Eyes which eclipsed everything else in Act I.

Act I concludes with Everett being released from prison and this is  met with much celebration and happiness from the other inmates who share his joy of freedom. Amidst this celebration, everything that could be thrown on stage was thrown and I can only sympathize with the stage hands who have to clear up the mess during the interval.

Upon his release, Everett aspires to be a singer selling records and after going through a catalogue of Presley's best hits, he eventually does succeed. Along with riches and success, he slowly  grows further apart from Peggy von Aulden (Lisa Peace), a woman who stood by him during his time of need. Seeing how fame and money was corrupting Everett, Houghton does what good friends do to help each other come back to their senses - He beats Everett to a pulp. Despite Everett's voice box being the worst thing that is damaged from the wild punches from his good friend, Everett's doctor confines him to a wheelchair because it adds to the dramatic effect of his fragile state. Without his famous voice, Everett loses his record deals but during this time, he starts growing closer to von Aulden once again. Eventually, he breaks his silence with a touching Always On My Mind. 

Although the story ends here, the musical doesn't and suddenly transforms  into a rock and roll concert. The sound manager amps up the volume and the cast performs a couple more numbers like Suspicious Minds, The Wonder Of You and Tutti Frutti. It was amazing seeing all the elderly ladies standing up and dancing wildly on their own accord. Other such rock and roll musicals that I had previously been to such as Buddy The Musical generally required the cast to encourage the audience to stand and dance but this  elderly audience seemed fairly enthusiastic. The final curtain drew such a loud and sustained applause that the cast returned for another encore performance during which Quinn threw his Jailhouse Rock souvenir towel (which had appeared on his shoulders during the closed curtain) into the audience. So if anyone wants the towel in future performances it is best to sit within the first two rows given its lack of projectile motion.

Much of the music in this musical is played by its own talented cast. In many of the songs, they also require some kind of percussion beats which the cast provide through an assortment of objects ranging from rattling prison cells, scrapping metal, banging bars and boxes and utilizing many other unique ways reminiscent of Stomp. While the use of this form of sound gives the music a unique sound and beat, there are moments when excessive use of them detract from their original goodness. The song 500 Miles was distorted by the overly loud and regular banging of an object by the prisoners against the ground. Also, when the cast decided to indulge in a cacophony of sound to signify chaotic scenes, it just crossed the "irritating" threshold. 

Everett's character indulges in many flashbacks of his deceased mother and the things she said to him when she was alive. The marginal impact of these excessive number of  scenes in propelling the musical forward is very negligible and personally, I feel these scenes tend to be more disruptive than useful in developing the storyline.

The best part of the musical has to be the boundlessly energetic Terera who never stops moving in whatever scene that he is in (regardless of whether he is in the foreground or in the background). Unfortunately, since the storyline revolves around Everett who leaves prison and not Terera's character who remains in prison, most of Act II sees Terera being reduced to a background singer singing along the sides while "observing" the action taking place. This man definitely deserves to headline his own show based on his effort alone in Jailhouse Rock.

Does Jailhouse Rock do enough to break the Piccadilly Theatre musical jinx which has seen most musicals opening there close within a short span of months? Probably not, although it would be interesting to see if this production runs even remotely as long as the other more inferior rock and roll musical, Buddy The Musical, which ran in London for twelve and a half years.

Reviewed on 16 June 2004

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