FERNEHAM HALL, FAREHAM 19TH, 20TH, 21ST FEBRUARY 2015

James Butler The News 23/02/2015

Clever Casting and Plenty of Swagger

In a break from tradition, Stage One Youth Theatre traded the older musicals in their repetoire for High School Musical, and it was clear that the cast were having lots of fun with this popular story.

The casting was clever, showing off the strengths of the company. Georgie Cox as Troy Bolton was convincing as East High's swaggering basketball star, and his voice harmonised brilliantly with Lily Wardale who played opposite him as brainiac love interest Gabriella Montez. And with few exceptions, the whole cast had strong American accents. Special mention to Milo Baker as Zeke Baylor, whose singing voice shone.

While the pacing of the scenes was spot on, it is a shame the same can't be said of the scene changes. Too many blackouts suspended belief, particularly when actors walked on and off stage out of character.

Energy levels seemed to sag in the second halfand the eye was distracted during some crowded split stage scenes, but a medley encore was performed with guts - a party to end with a bang.

BASED on the Disney TV movie, this is a loose adaptation of the story of those star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet: in this telling the dissenting houses are the jocks and swots, no one dies, toleration and understanding reigns and all ends happily.

Deftly capturing the familiar setting of high school, director Jacqui Ivemy has fashioned a bright, energetic and fun production that perfectly suits the Disney tale.

Staged on a fairly simple set, with clever changes of props, the show maintained a nimble pace and contained finely structured scenes.

The cast showed great enthusiasm and commitment. They were led by two fine performances - Georgie Cox (Troy) and Lily Wardale (Gabriella) – with a whole raft of strong supporting roles, in particular Phoebe Saunders and Declan Dali-Murphy (Sharpay and Ryan Evans), Charlotte Brombley (Taylor) and Emily Collins-Wingate (Ms Darbus).