Rock Of Ages – Garrick Theatre 21.09.2013

“Here we are, back at the Bourbon Room…”
For a double Rock Out – Matinee & Evening, meeting quite a few of the RoAdies I had only heard of so far and was pretty excited and slightly nervous about!

With two shows  completely lacking of principles. Ross Hunter (Drew) had been sick with a strong bronchitis, Tim Howar (Stacee Jaxx) also was ill due to bad breathing issues, Daniel Fletcher (Dennis Dupree) was off, too, and we were short on girls so Zizi Strallen had to come back earlier as Groupie, right next to Cameron Sharp, filling in as Joey Primo.
Drew would be played by Dylan Turner, which would be meaning I’d be going to see my 3rd ever Drew, and despite the fact that I had really wanted to see Ross again, I was more than excited to see someone else in that role. And whoa, this man is not only absolutely hot looking (he never had been my type or anything), but the voice inside of him is mindblowing. Never would I have expected that his Drew would be some seriously amazing thing. Whenever he came up to the high notes, I was thinking “Oli Tompsett would be pretty proud if he heard this right now.” Dylan’s duets with Natalie Andreou as Sherrie were so absolutely beautiful, and I understood why everyone was so overjoyed about him getting the chance to play that role over these few days. I was really excited about the part in “Oh, Sherrie”, where Drew sings this really, really high and long tune, and ever since I had heard and seen Oliver Tompsett killing it one year ago, no one had ever impressed me like he had done back then. But man….Dylan? For God’s sake, he was ON FIRE! That tune coming out of him for more than a few seconds was absolutely perfect! He had the audience completely going mental over that one (considering ALOT of the people at the Garrick that day were dedicated RoAdies, it’s not hard, really).
Grant Anthony was playing Stacee, and I didn’t really expect alot, though I had heard he would be amazing – but considering that Tim had completely cast a spell over me when I first saw his Stacee two months earlier, I doubted anybody could match up to that….well, I was proven wrong. Completely wrong. Grant was AMAZING as Stacee, his facial expressions were completely cracking me up, and his voice…whoa, that man has some serious talent right there! Loved the deep vocals so much, and I was more than happy I got to see him before the show closes.
Our Dennis in both shows was Andy Spillett, and what can I say: I think he gave me my favourite Dennis ever that day!  He, too, has the most hilarious facial expressions I have ever seen on anybody, and during the scene when Lonny (Simon Lipkin) is holding the Fogmaster 5000 and starts talking about his feelings towards Dennis, Andy’s face was priceless, there are no other words for that. I loved absolutely everything about his Dennis!
Joey Primo that day would be played by Cameron Sharp, and no words needed for how excited I had been for that one! I had heard from Sarah that he had been absolutely amazing the day before, and after seeing him on the left side of the stage, throwing money in the air and shouting “I SHIT MONEY!”, I was absolutely hooked by him. He did so unbelievably well, he seemed like he had never done anything else in his entire life, and you would never ever guess that he had only started rehearsals 4 days earlier and had been throwin into cold water with his stage premiere the day before. He just seemed like the boy next door, a member of the Cast that had always been there. And whenever I think of Joey Primo now, all that comes to my mind is his face. He was absolutely flawless, and I’m gutted I will never get to see his Drew!

Of course, there had been a few very remarkable things in both shows:

Matinee:
– After “Can’t Fight This Feeling”, Simon had his face coming closer and closer to Andy’s, and while the entire audience completely freaked out, he nudged his nose and Andy started laughing along.
– Programme Scene – always something everyone is excited about the most, because you never know what Simon Lipkin will be pulling next. When Lonny/Simon went “What do you really want?” to Drew, unexpectedly, some random guy up in the Dress Circle suddenly shouted down to the stage “How much for a picture of you naked????” – safe to say the entire audience completely went nuts, cheering and laughing, and you could just see how much that question had distracted Simon; he was even more out of script than he already is every single time. He kept grinning, staring upstairs, and after a few seconds of trying to pull himself together and go on with the show again, he gave in, saying “Okay, I’m sorry, but I just have to ask: WHAT?!” Everyone was laughing their asses off, but the guy in the Dress Circle obviously was too shy to repeat his question, so Simon made a short joke about him feeling quite safe up there, first having a huge mouth and not pretending it had never happened, then he went back to his normal track – hilarious.

Evening:
– During the scene when Jodie Jacobs as Regina runs past Drew, who is holding a Pizza Box in his hands, she bumped into him and inspite of the box flipping 180 degrees – which it usually did, so Drew always had to try to flip it back upwards without the Pizza sticking to the top, – it flipped the entire way round – 360 degrees. For a second Dylan was seriously confused and tried everything to not start laughing, but he was very good at keeping his composure and going on with the script.
– The scene when Drew & Sherrie have a serious talk about their feelings towards the end, when Drew complains about Sherrie sleeping with Stacee Jaxx and Sherrie tells him he told her they were just friends, and Drew goes all like “I never said that!”, Simon bursted out of the door, holding a huge cookie in his hand, and the audience went mad. He obviously had been chewing on it before that scene, because his mouth was full of crumbles, and for over a minute, he tried everything to swallow as fast as he could, before almost choking on the words “Uhm, yes, you did!” and running back to where he came from – I highly doubt that that was intended or planned after all. Not with knowing Simon 😀
– Programme Scene: Simon started to make fun of Drew/Dylan having been in “High School Musical”, and he started doing the choreography they do during “We’re All In This Together”, calling Dylan a “Disney-loving Bastard” all the way and telling him he would’ve loved him to be in “Cinderella”, simply for the “Bibedi-bapedi-boo!” Oh, Simon.

After both shows, we went to the Stage Door, and it was quite crowded. After I caught Simon (yes, you know I just had to, right?), we all saw him going over to a girl a bit further away, and he started signing on a green cast she wore around her arm, and suddenly, while he was signing, we all saw him starting to laugh, and after a few seconds, he completely cracked up, tried to regain his composure to finish the signature, but with Nathan Amzi seeing it too and starting to laugh, it was absolutely impossible. Somehow, we all knew that he had been writing something really inappropriate onto it, and we were right: he had drawn a penis onto the inside of the girl’s hand, and all I could think of was “Oh, Simon! Little boy inside a grown man’s body!”

I don’t remember anything I said to anyone at the SD that day, but I do remember that after Simon had been so kind to take a picture with me inside that crowd infront of the Garrick (though he surely wanted to get away to grab some food before the evening show), I just felt like getting him some kind of little Thank You, so along with Alison’s Mother Mandy, who got him a Wispa Bar, I got him one, too. When after the evening show, he came out, I gave it to him, he smiled like a little boy, his eyes wide opened like it was Christmas, and he went all like “Awww! Thank you! Chocolate, that’s the way into my heart!!!” and inside, I was all like “Yeah, I figured that, why you think I spoil you with these all the time?” 😀 Of course, I just had to take another picture with him, as I never am really pleased with the ones I have, because none of them is that perfect (and come on, I never let an opportunity to be in that boy’s arm pass!), and when he said “Sure!” and I went to his right side, he grinned widely at me and asked “Is that your better side?” and I went “Yeah, my chocolate side!” I think it’s safe to say I completely melted in his arm that moment, because I finally had managed to get at least a very slight connection with him, something I had wished for so badly since I had met him first last year, and having him making an approach of talking to me first was more than I had expected when I started that day at the Garrick.

After taking all of our possible SD pictures – Cameron Sharp, Selina Hamilton, Nathan Amzi & Rachel McFarlane (without my desperately wanted and needed pic with Natalie Andreou; she had visibly twisted her ankle on stage during one of the last songs and rushed off the Garrick after the evening show, which was absolutely understandable), I went back to my hostel with the thought that this weekend had been more perfect than I had ever hoped for it to be, – especially with FINALLY meeting Noor (who I already dearly loved when I first met her, sitting right next to me during the Matinee), Steph, Natalia, Sigal and so many others of the RoAdie Family! And I already couldn’t wait to be back 2 weeks later!