Reviewed by Kathryn Harrison
On Thursday evening (10 May 2018) a friend and I visited the Liverpool Empire Theatre to watch Summer Holiday The Musical. It’s always a pleasure to visit the Empire Theatre thanks to its great location next to Lime St Station as well as the lovely friendly staff. The Summer Holiday Musical is based on the classic Cliff Richard film of the same name.
The superb cast was led by Ray Quinn who was brilliant as Don and definitely had an air of Cliff about him. The whole cast were extremely talented and played their parts well but I particularly enjoyed the double act of Bobby Crush as Jerry and Taryn Sudding as Stella, their rapport was highly amusing and provided some of the most comedic moments of the show. My favourite cast member was William Beckerleg who was part of the ensemble, he played multiple minor parts brilliantly and I found myself laughing every time he was on stage.
Although we had never the seen the original film both my friend and I recognized a lot of the music and were singing along to classic songs such as Bachelor Boy, Do you wanna dance, Living Doll and of course Summer Holiday. The brilliant vocals were accompanied by a wonderful live band. As if the fantastic music wasn’t enough I was blown away by the dancing, the skill and strength of every member of the company was amazing, at times the dancing was bordering on gymnastics with the amount of tumbles, flips and cartwheels. It was truly incredible.
My only criticism would be that, at times, the vocals were a little hard to hear. I’m unsure whether this was due to a technical issue or because the dancing and movement was so energetic however it didn’t detract too much from our enjoyment. Overall though this was a charming, feel good show that had the whole theatre on their feet dancing by the end of the show, I think every member of the audience left the theatre with a smile on their face and a song on their lips.
Rating: 4/5
Tickets cost from £13 to £45.50 (plus £2.85 transaction fee).
Summer Holiday is at the Liverpool Empire from 10-12 May 2018, for more information or to book tickets visit www.atgtickets.com/liverpool or call the box office on 0844 8713017.
Liverpool Empire Theatre, Lime Street, Liverpool, Merseyside, L1 1JE | 0844 8713017
